The final film Walt produced before his death, The Sword in the Stone, preached about the importance of education. In the picture, Merlin believes educating a young king Arthur will bring England out of the dark ages. In real life, Disney didnt seem to value education as much as his final film would have us believe. As a young man, Walt worked on a delivery route for the Kansas City Star, but it wasnt like the paper routes kids get saddled with today. Walt had to deliver papers to 700 customers every day and more than 600 hundred in the evening. All this paper hustling didnt leave Walt much time for school. Walt received poor grades for dozing off in class from exhaustion. It seems that making a buck was more important to Walt than hitting the books. Later, Walt dropped out of high school at the age of 16 to serve his country in World War I. Unfortunately, the army rejected him for being underage. He never returned to get his diploma. Walt's lack of formal education didn't stop him from being a huge success, but his disinterest in school contradicts the values he sold us in his films.
