Description: The paper argues that the term 'spiritual education' is completely otiose. It begins by attempting to discover if it has any application in a religious or non-secular context, in the course of which a number of pertinent questions are explored. These include: What constitutes a 'spiritual quest' and how might it be distinguished from a philosophical quest? What is it to search for meaning and purpose? What, if anything turns on the distinction between the search for meaning and purpose and the discovery of such? It is argued that references to the 'spiritual' and 'spiritual maturity' are more problematic, even in a non-secular context that might at first appear. Two very useful distinctions are made by Alexander and McLaughlin (2003) between 'religiously tethered' and 'religiously untethered' forms of spirituality on the one hand, and education in spirituality 'from the inside' and 'from the outside' on the other. The paper questions the very possibility of initiating children into such a form of understanding without indoctrination. It is claimed that genuine understanding in this area is similar to that of genuine religious understanding, namely that it is bought at the price of believing in the truth of propositions that are deeply questionable and far from certain.In view of the fact that teachers in England and Wales are subject to regular inspection - which includes the extent to which they provide for children's 'spiritual education', a number of writers, including several distinguished philosophers of education, have tried to articulate a conception of the term which is applicable in a secular context. This paper focuses on two attempts in particular; these are those of John Haldane and David Carr. While Haldane tries to account for spirituality in terms of the adoption of an appropriate 'demeanour' in response to certain truths about the human condition, Carr is at pains to locate certain epistemological constraints by reference to which a distinct spiritual knowledge, with its own subject matter, can be identified and on the basis of which spiritual education might proceed. He sees spiritual education as having both a theoretical and practical dimension - the former relating to the acquisition of spiritual knowledge and the latter referring to the practice of spiritual virtues. Difficulties associated with identifying appropriate demeanours or attitudes notwithstanding, it is argued that all such reference provides no help whatsoever to teachers struggling to make sense of what they should be doing in order to educate children spiritually. Carr's attempts to provide for both theoretical and practical knowledge in relation to the spiritual are, it is argued, equally unsuccessful.The paper concludes with an endorsement of the views of John White and Christopher Winch to the effect that there is an essential incoherence in the idea of 'spiritual development'. Methodology: I address these contested positions in greater depth through a process of reflective equilibrium - a philosophical method that tests a hypothesis by considering various cases to see whether the hypothesis holds up in its principles (Daniels, 1996). Through this reflective process, we advance philosophical arguments by looking at the strengths and weaknesses of the alternative sets of principles, and hope to determine which judgments are superior having considered a variety of perspectives. It is important to note that these principles may or may not match a person's prejudgments about certain principles - it is not about developing a principle that first one's personal beliefs - it is based on a non-foundationalist argument. A person alters and revises his or her conceptions after numerous considerations have been proposed (Ibid, p. 43). If a conception is incompatible with a firmly held belief, there is also potential understanding to be learnt. Assuming that persons have a realm of reasonableness, we hope to determine which judgments are superior after having looked at an appropriate variety of cases. In sum, 'we are constantly making plausibility judgments about which of our considered moral judgments we should review in light of theoretical considerations at all levels' (Ibid, p. 28). Conclusions: Education has always been concerned with trying to answer 'big questions' and rightly so. Such questions, however, are at bottom reducible to the standard fare of a liberal education in so far as they are scientific, aesthetic, religious, moral, social, political, economic, psychological, philosophical and the like. Once serious questions are posed in such areas, and teachers are engaged in the laudable enterprise of helping young people answer them, the case still needs to be made for an extra, 'spiritual' dimension. Until then we should no more conclude that experiences of awe and wonder, the ability to find meaning or purpose in one's life, self-knowledge and understanding, the ability to remain calm in the face of adversity, or any other of the favoured litanies, should be characterized by reference to the 'spiritual', than the resignation felt upon missing the last bus is 'philosophical' in any other than a colloquial sense.