The most important thing is that knowledge allows you to make a person - a HUMAN! He ceases to be a primitive creature living for primitive purposes (to eat, sleep, reproduce), an educated person is more difficult to manipulate, a society of educated people, in general, is more free and democratic, strives for a legal settlement of problems. Globally, the community of educated people is more outwardly developed and forward looking.
If you look, you will notice that any archaistic or totalitarian regime - first of all, tries to protect people from the correct and full-fledged education, they leave only the primitive - to learn to count and read.