Irving Finkel

They were certainly cliquey in the sense of Oxford and Cambridge being rivals, that sort of thing.

They had that sort of idea.

And it was in no one's interest whatsoever.

Nobody would ever concede any interest in the idea of literacy for all.

This would be

It will never be thought of, and it will be anathema.

And so if you got on a soapbox on a Saturday afternoon and say, "'Ah, enough of this.

We have to teach the children.'"

They'd be taken away, I think.

We are, except this, that when you went to scribal school, you had to learn Sumerian and Akkadian, the languages properly, and all the vocabulary and the grammar.

So some boys probably had a lot of trouble understanding

doing this and you know they were okay but there ain't going to be no geniuses and i think the situation in the school was that the teachers farmed out the kids who would actually rather have been outside playing football but could read and write to earning their living

doing low-level reading and writing.

That's to say writing contracts, letters, everyday things for people because no one could read and write.

So you had to get a scribe if you're going to marry your daughter off and you get all the witnesses about the presence and all this.

All the thing had to be done for four days.

So the writer would come and do it.

So your medium-level writers would serve that requirement.

And very talented or clever or intellectual,

students would be encouraged to go into one of the literary professions which would be so to speak medicine