Your editorial makes a strong case for lifelong adult education ( The Guardian view on adult education: learning should be for all ages, 25 October ). But like the report by the all party parliamentary group on further education that it refers to, it overlooks one vital dimension: we need adult education to defend democracy.

For most of the last century, adult education’s role in creating democratic civil society was widely accepted, not least by policymakers. The Ministry of Reconstruction made the case in 1919 : “universal and lifelong” adult education was “a permanent national necessity, an inseparable aspect of citizenship”.

It would cultivate “an open habit of mind, clear-sighted and truth-loving, proof against sophisms, shibboleths, claptrap phrases and cant”. Later official reports agreed.…