In the United States elementary education begins at the age of six. At this stage nearly ail the teachers are women, mostly married. The atmosphere is usually very friendly, and the teachers have now accepted the idea that the important thing is to make the children happy and interested. The old authoritarian (要绝对服从的) methods of education were discredited (不被认可) rather a long time ago - so much so that many people now think that they have gone too far in the direction of trying to make children happy and interested rather than giving them actual instruction. The social education of young children tries to make them accept the idea that human beings in a society need to work together for their common good. So the emphasis is on co-operation rather than competition throughout most of this process. This may seem curious, in view of the fact that American society is highly competitive; however, the need for making people sociable in this sense has come to be regarded as one of the functions of education. Most Americans do grow up with competitive ideas, and obviously quite a few as criminals, but it is not fair to say that the educational system fails. It probably does succeed in making most people sociable and ready to help one another both in material ways and through kindness and friendliness.