I began by identifying three primary or primitive properties — and only three — that we do in fact seem always to include in one way or another when in common parlance we speak of the educational system. Those primitive features are that the system is a system of schools and colleges, related by a medium of exchange, and arranged according to a principle of sequence. Because the system has these properties, however, it has also certain derivative features. It has some size, some means of control, and some principles that describe its distributive behavior. It will expand according to certain principles, and because of the distributive properties of its benefits it will produce an array of political arguments in its support.