I was lucky enough to spend a fair amount of time in college with a senior citizen who was aiming for a fine arts degree in painting. As in most colleges, this does not require algebra which she thought was a shame as she had been home schooled and had a thorough background in mathematics as was expected of a young lady of her class and social standing. That 'woke' me up to the decline in education standards in the second half of the 20th century. Not only in this country but around the world. If you think I'm wrong, just compare the textbooks available now with what was available in say 1910! Would you even be allowed to use a text book by Hilbert? I doubt it. I will grant you that she was exceptional and typically excelled in any endeavor she chose---she was I believe the first American woman to be allowed a role on stage at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin as an example. Decline and Fall are us I guess...
By 1910 universal compulsory education was already in full swing in many places. Take Massachusetts, for example. If you examine the textbooks being used in Massachusetts at that time you'll see the same phenomenon -- they're much more advanced than modern textbooks. And they were not just for the rich, Massachusetts already had compulsory education.
And by the same argument: where are today's equivalent textbooks for the rich? Our wealth gap is as big as ever, yet I see no books even for the rich that are so advanced.
But he's doing it across a couple generations. Our material wealth is so much greater that it's reasonable to ask whether our level of education has kept up.
