The recent development of the concept of generations in the empirical research of many disciplines seems to be related to the two ways in which the human species is said to learn: the learning that occurs in the course of an individual life and the learning that occurs through the change of generations as part of an historical process. What observations follow from this distinction? It will be suggested that there is a correlation between the increasing separation of action and interpretation within the historical process and the growth of the educational system. The learning of generations follows a relatively steady trend. The learning of the individual human being is limited by the experiences of a single life and varies in its interpretations with regard to this trend. With the growth of the educational system comes the crystallization of ‘new forms’ of identity.