From beginning to end, how does education help improve the lives of the characters in The Color Purple? Please provide quotes as evidence.

Education does not improve the live of the characters in
this novel. There are absolutely no examples of lives being improved through
education. 

The missionaries who travel to Africa with the
intentions to educate the Olinka tribe according to western standards fail to help the
tribe when their land is taken from them and their livelihoods destroyed. The one person
they seemed most likely to help ends up undertaking the ritual scarring and female
circumcision that the missionaries tried to help eliminate. Though Tashi was "educated",
she was not helped. 

Nettie, Celie's bright and educated
sister, fails in her efforts to help the Olinka, despairs over the hurt she causes to
Corrine, and generally is unaided by her education in her
efforts. 

Celie is not educated. She is literate, but this
is the extent of her education. While she is able to find some solace in writing
letters, this is not exactly a benefit of education, per
se. 

Schooling plays only a tangential role in
the narrative of the novel and education is not depicted as salvational or especially
helpful.