In the past people learned super-paced in many subjects we don't learn now, which is pointed out in biographies. "Consider the child, for example. Today we believe that babies are born with the ability to feel many emotions, but that their capacities for rational thought are not yet developed. In effect, we believe that the child's mind must "mature." Yet, as the historian Philippe Aries demonstrates, for much of Western history - roughly until the seventeenth century - childhood was not considered to be a state of mental immaturity, a state somehow different or separated from that of adult faculties, but simply without the experience to make full use of them. Thus Montaigne wrote in his essay on children's education that philosophical discourse should be introduced at a very early age - in fact, 'from the moment it is weaned, the child will, in any case, be able to understand philosophical discourses." These understandings of the child corresponded to patterns of conduct. Montaigne wrote of a friend's child who read Greek, Latin, and Hebrew when he was six years old, and translated Plato into French before he was eight. In the upper classes, reading and writing were common by the age of four; children were able to read the Bible and discuss complex matters of moral principle before they were five. Looking through the lens of contremporary beliefs about the "maturing mind," such abilities border on the incomprehensible." 2 Q & As "The author most likely uses the examples in order to present a conrast with the currently held view of children's abilities." "In the context of the last paragraph, the final sentence suggests that expectations of what children are intellectually capable of are much lower today." Could you have passed 8th grade 100 years ago? http://www.pathtofreedom.com/cgi-bin/messageboard/YaBB.pl?board=education;action=display;num=1069196432
