How was education and learning preserved in europe during the early middle ages?

Education and learning was largely preserved during the Middle Ages through the Church and through the progress made during the age of the Roman Empire. The language of academia, for both of these reasons, was in Latin.

People who went into academia, learning to read and write and study other subjects, usually did so in Latin. This is both because the Roman Catholic Church usually administrated this education, and also because much of the texts that were studied were in Latin due to there origin in the Roman Empire. 

Social darwinism refers to the the theory that people who succeed in our economic system will one day out compete those who fail. one day the rich will out succeed the poor so we'll that there will eventually be no more poor