So Merlin is all about Arthur getting a proper education. He teaches him, with songs, about how he needs to be smart and take action for himself and not just leave things up to chance and call it his fate. He puts Arthur's chores on auto-pilot with magic, and when it goes wrong Arthur gets fired from being a squire, so Merlin basically tells him to just get educated first and everything will work out from there.
Fast forward toward the end of the movie and Arthur gets his squire job back and he's pumped that he gets to go to London, and Merlin absolutely loses it, telling him it's not a position to be proud of.. maybe he's right about the job in general but Arthur's just an orphan starting on the bottom happy that he made *some* progress.
Fast forward again and Arthur pulls the sword from the stone and becomes king by complete chance. Education had dick-all to do with it. Yet Merlin comes back and couldn't be happier for how this all turned out.
Whole thing just reminds me of the US economy thought process. Just go to college… get a degree and it will work out from there. Going into the workforce and starting out at or near the bottom is frowned upon or at least thought lesser of. The “Kings” who got super rich, most of whom seem to be college dropouts, are admired even though a huge lot of their success was luck. Plus, how many of them started out as a proverbial squire?