Against education as training

I came across an excellent column in the Telegraph about the value of knowledge for its own sake:

It's that that raises us above Economic Man, who knows the price of everything. And is something - there is a vague point to this article, I regret to say - that we'd benefit from recognising, and defending in our education system.

I freely admit that about half of what I'm really curious about has no obvious practical use. But I'd also argue that the entire point of civilization is to allow us to indulge in impractical pursuits.