The symbolic name
Little Tree's name is a symbolic name given to him by grandparents who specifically intended it to mean something. As the title, The Education of Little Tree, indicates, the name points to Little Tree's curious nature and his rapid and healthy growth into a person. He won't be a little tree forever, because he grows by absorbing information and love into his roots. The idea of a "tree" also indicates a long life, and in addition to the timeless quality of nature and trees, it signifies the unseen nature of the boy, just as the tree is half seen, half unseen (because the tree is half-roots).
Education
Is the school the main Education that Little Tree receives? Far from it. Instead of giving him a worthwhile education, the school offers him only the indoctrination of children into the culture of the American mainstream. If anything, it teaches him about the pernicious nature of the government in relationship to his people. The Christian world doesn't honor his culture or his people. They only seek to control and homogenize. This points symbolically to the true titular education, the cultural education that Little Tree receives from his patriarch and matriarch.
Whiskey and law
The grandparents let Little Tree in on a little secret. They aren't exactly rule followers after all it seems. Although they certainly exemplify justice, their justice also means that they do not obey laws that they oppose ethically. In this case, they don't believe the government has the right to take away their booze, and they resist the government by distilling moonshine and selling it to their community. The sweet old grandparents are secretly criminal kingpins, indications of another kind of justice besides blind legal obedience. They obey their intuition freely. Also, it is important to remember the exact history of how they came under government control in the first place; the government was never fair or just toward Native Americans, and so they are opposed to the invasive oversight of a government that never did good by them once.
The death pairs
The grandparents, although immortal-seeming to young Little Tree, end up being mortal after all. They die in sorrowful ways, leaving the boy alone, a true orphan. He isn't quite alone though, because he has his animal companions, Red and Blue, the family pups. When they die, that symbolizes his official initiation into full adult consciousness. He is aware of his animal nature, like the dogs which die, a nature that extends to his mortal grandparents, but the title points to his spiritual Education. He has been taught that his grandparents are not only mortal animal bodies but also eternal spirits with him wherever he goes. The three pairs are part of a mythic motif about the layers of reality.
Nature and spirit
The human being is mystically natural and spiritual, if The Education of Little Tree has merit. This means that there is a symbolic and mystical union of opposites, which can be seen throughout the books. From the beginning, Carter has two sets of parents, the dead parents and the alive grandparents. He has two names: Carter and Little Tree. In the end, he is taught to believe that humans are unions of flesh and spirit, one with nature in body, and one with a higher nature in spirit.
