Let's imagine someone asking a question like this at a political event in, let's say, 1860. He would either be arrested or kicked out, or worse. Not saying those days were better! But still, just imagine.
Yes. And remember that the population had a higher baseline education than what we have today. Not saying those days were better! (But not saying that those days were worse, either!)That exam is an interesting artifact, but I'm not sure it proves your point. I suspect most students either failed the exam or didn't take it at all-- the proportion who passed would, I imagine, be close to that would pass a broadly similar exam today. Do you think a bunch of farmers in Kansas could have defined "Monrovia, Odessa, or Orinoco", or list "nine rules for the use of Capital Letters"?
It reflects the teaching of the time-- focused on rules, facts, and rote memorization. Now, while I probably have a higher opinion of rote memorization than most others who have "thoughts" on the education system, the exam tests little in the way of critical thinking or analytical capacity and focuses on the recitation of arcana. Now, I have since childhood been notorious for my ability to do exactly that (and am correspondingly ill-versed in things, like sports or contemporary culture, that would be of greater use in casual conversation), so the recitation of arcana has considerable personal appeal, but ultimately says nothing about the capacity of the students taking it.
Some of the questions just wouldn't fly today-- the "epochs of American history" are a matter for historiographical debate rather than memorization by middle schoolers, while "define and illustrate each case" is ambiguous-- does it refer to letter case or grammatical case (e.g. accusative, nominative, genitive, dative, etc.); the latter does not really exist in English and reflects the classics-heavy orientation of contemporary education.
An even more striking artifact of education priorities in Victorian America are university entrance examinations,
this Harvard exam from 1899 asks essentially identical questions about grammar and composition as the Kansas exam, except for Latin and Greek instead of English (the Greek section is an interloper from the 1869 exam), and the history and geography is ancient history and classical geography rather than modern. The math questions are not dissimilar from what would be expected today, with the exception of the arithmetic section, which is comprised in its entirety of convoluted calculations, that demonstrate nothing but patience, that would today be done by calculator.
Columbia's entrance exam in 1898, on the other hand, on top of everything included on the Harvard exam, required knowledge of Greek, Latin, French,
and German, as well as the following texts:
While the readings seem doable for someone who has taken an AP-level literature course, the languages would probably require having been tutored in them since the nursery. But keep in mind that while 7 out of 8 takers passed the Harvard exam in 1898, there were only 210 takers, and they posted classifieds in the
Times seeking applicants. But I digress.
Were people more educated in the 19th century? Almost certainly not.
