I read long ago that King Charlemagne (we call him Big Charlie) badly wanted to learn to read. In the School of Education at UWSP, there are professors who specialize in teaching prospective teachers how to teach children to read. Too bad he didn't have access to reading professors. Some of his ministers could read but Charley had a hard time. I read that he thought it might help him to keep a book under his pillow while he slept.
I write about him because I am trying to recall that at one time being able to make sense of those marks and making such marks to store information and impressions and words about unobservable emotions, fears and feelings was a rare skill. Now, we have children using smartphones and reading a great deal of the time.
I don't think we are far smarter than people in those days, just different mostly. But we do have tools and arrangements that allow us to communicate with others we don't know and have never met. And, don't forget the people who died a long time ago. Writing and reading enable us to understand some of what Mark Twain and Eleanor Roosevelt thought and did.
