> The pain of enduring mandatory training in reading or writing
> is not limited to the poor but occurs in all levels of society.
Sadly, I do not think this is true. There's a small group in our society who will succeed and excel despite "enduring" training in reading and writing, but for the vast majority, I wish that it were moreso mandatory. Reading -- for comprehension, logic, and reasoning -- and writing -- clearly and in a way that closely approximates intent -- are skills that most people, in all levels of society, simply do not have.
Dennis Claxton writes:
> I remember once reading a story that I've never been able to find
> again about a black man in Haiti in the 18th or 19th century who
> committed suicide by jumping off a bridge with a dictionary around
> his neck to weigh him down. The moral of the story was he'd done
> everything he thought would make him free, especially learning how
> to read and write, and it didn't change his lot at all.
This is of course a simple logic error.
/jordan