On 5/13/2017 12:48 PM, clipka wrote:
> Am 13.05.2017 um 12:59 schrieb Thomas de Groot:
>
>> All joking aside, the wealth is what remains tangible I think, more than
>> poverty and decrepitude which are rapidly erased by the wear and tear of
>> history and age.
>>
>> Interestingly, in that respect, there has been a book published recently
>> of letters from wives to sailors on the Dutch ships during the wars we
>> fought against each others. Those letters were intercepted by English
>> privateers and so never reached destination. It is amazing to see how
>> literate those humble women were in those days; reading and writing was
>> rather common and especially the reading of gazettes, which were also
>> sent alongside the letters.
>
> I would be wary of sampling bias when assessing the literacy of a group
> of people by such a sample of letters sent.
>
> For example, people of poor literacy might have tended to send fewer
> letters than their more literate peers, causing them to be
> underrepresented in the sample; and illiterate people will be excluded
> from the sample entirely for obvious reasons.
>
> Also, the letters might not necessarily reflect the literacy of the
> purported authors, as there is at least the possibility that they might
> have been dictated into the hand of a more literate member of the
> household or neighborhood.
>


All what you say is true. But it was also the Age of Enlightenment and 
literacy rates were rising.

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message