I also tend to think that a solid education is the foundation of making a great people. I wonder about the interplay of education and culture, which some others have alluded to already.

What is conventionally meant by "country" may be the phantom of what we now call the once great civilizations of antiquity. I think one common element that we can point to in these civilizations is that they all had a cohesive culture. It is hard to say what could have inculcated that if it hadn't been a unified philosophical or spiritual understanding that was somehow inculcated in their systems for education.

And as much as education feeds into culture, I believe the inverse is equally true.