The author calls for a "cultural revolution" and urges a radical examination of the social myths and institutions by which we presently live our lives. He scores the present educational structure in America as a sacred cow which suits people for a life of consumption rather than action. In its stead he proposes a "deschooled" society; legal protection from the obligatory, graded curriculum; laws forbidding discrimination on the basis of prior schooling; the formation of skill centers where useful skill can be learned, taught by those best equipped to teach them; and peer-matching by which the learned may share their knowledge with those seeking instruction. Central to the scheme of "deschooling" is the idea of an educational voucher system--in which economic credit units allow the learner to choose what he will learn, from whom he will learn, and why he will learn. In this way, Illich hopes to humanize our increasingly technological society and destroy the "school myth". (JY)