Theory and practical experience would always go together and very few extraordinary people achieve excellence with a single weapon.
Education teaches a human about how he/she would need to channelize the thinking process. Afterall, the education system is built upon the combination of practical experience and scientific research done by the authors. But, one after gaining theoritical knowledge and not putting it into practice is like having the raw food in hand and not cooking it! The raw food has no taste and very tough to digest.
Apart from this, very few people in the world like Dhirubhai, Bill gates(College Drop-out)has a great knack at visualising the future world and they were truly inspired by their vision and here also, having a vision is theory and if they did not have put that into practice those ideas would have gone into the drain. We would not see a Microsoft or a Reliance!
So, one should strive for excellence in both education as well as putting that into practicality. That would be a phenominal achievement both for the self and the society around and it will ignite millions and billions of people who would require an inspiration or an example.