The legacies of literacy : continuities and contradictions in western culture and society [1st Midland book ed.] 9780253147332, 0253147336, 9780253205988, 0253205980

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The

Of CONTINUITIES AND CONTRADICTIONS IN WESTERN CULTURE AND SOCIETY

Hanrey J. Graff

IЧ

The

Lesacies ot

Literacy

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The CONTINUITIES AND CONTRADICTIONS

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:管 INヽ /1TA

NIL餓 OFIcIEぶ l DIscttSiVE:ゝ ‐ IFNttRVA・

Of IN WESTERN CULTURE AND SttCIETY

HanreyJ. Graff

INDIANA UNIVERSI]■

/PII〕

SS

BLOOMINGTON AND INDIANAPOLIS

For Allan Sharlin

(r95o-r983) The strength of his life lives on in his memory.

Frontis: Early modern attitudes toward literacy, print, reading and their uses, fromJohann

Theodor deBry, Emblenata secalaria nira a liuanda,1611 (Case W 1025.1268), emblem 69. Coutay o/Ifu Natfurry library, Cbicago.

First Midland Book Edition t99l

@t987 by Harvey J. Graff

All

rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses' Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition. Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Graff, Harvey J. The legacies of literacy. Includes bibliographical references and index.

l. Literacy-History. I. Title. LCI49.G63 1986 3cl2.2 ISBN 0-253-14733-6

IsBN 0-253-20598-0 (pbk.)

23456959493929t

85-46o29

Contents

VH

PREFACE ACKNOヽ VLEDGMENTS

lX

Part One: Setting the Stage

Legacies I. The Origins of Westem Literacy r. From Writing to Literacy / 16

2

Introduction: Literacy's

15

z. Literacy's First Legacies: From Athens . . . I 3. . . .. toRome, and Beyond / 26

22

Part Two: Before the Printing Press: The Middle Ages

z.

The Light of Literacy in the "Dark

I.

Fifth-Seventh Centuries

z.

Seventh Century

/

to the Thirteenth

34

35

39

3. Eighth Century I 44 4. Ninth-Tenth Centuries

3. New Lights of Literacy

/

Ages"

and

/

50

lrarning: From the Tenth-Eleventh

Centuries

53

r. Italy and Commercial Revolution I 54 z. The Church, Papacy, and Schools / 57 3. Patterns of Literacy / 59 4. Thought, Theory, and Practice / 73 4.

Ends and Beginnings: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth

r. Humanism z.

and the Italian Renaissance

Continental Conditions in Literacy

3. The English Example /

95

/

/

90

76

Centuries

75

vi

Contents

Part Three: An OId World and a New World

5. Print, Protest,

and the

People

108

t.

The Advent and Impact of Print

z.

Renaissance(s) Revisited

I

/

108

120

3. Print, Reform, and Reformatiot I 132 4. Reforming Literacy Provision / 137

6.

r66er78o I 176 z. Patterns of Literacy; Paths to Literacy I 182

Toward EnlightenmenUToward Modemity:

r. Thinking

173

about Literacy and Schooling

Part Four: Toward the Present and the Future

7.

The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Our Times

260

r. The Setting /262 z.

Literacy's Paths and Pattems

I

265

Epilogue: Today and Tomorrow: Revisioning Literacy

373

r.

Twentieth-Century Trends in Literacy l-evels

z.

Imputed Impacts and Consequences; or, Great and Other Dichotomies Revisited

3. A Crisis in Literacy?

/

/

I

374

381

390

4. Literacy, Culture, and Society: Future ofLiteracy

I

Communications and the

393

NOTES

401

INDEX

486

PREFACE

The subject of literacy is immense and complex. This book attempts to clarify that it is also a subject with continuities and contradictions at its very core. That may surprise some readers, for discussions of literacy are typically considerations

of change. How simple are our notions about literacy. How directly and linearly we conceive its consequences. How stark and inflexible are our assumptions and expectations about it. And, how deeply we hold our faith in its powers. What a great burden we place on a single attribute. Literacy has come to assume many meanings and to carry within its own fragile status the power of a cultural symbol, as well as of social and economic reality. The condition of literacy in a given society is often questioned, but seldom is our faith in its provenance subjected to critical view. That is especially glaring at a moment in history such as we inhabit now, in which we confront many crises, and a "crisis" of literacy is claimed to be one of the most threatening. Now is the time for a synthetic and systematic account of literacy's history to be attempted. If my argument, that literacy can be understood only in terms of its historical development, is correct, then the approach to understanding and meaning offered here is required for us to comprehend the present and face the future. That is no small undertaking. Consequently, I seek no complete success. Although long, this book is not intended to be definitive. The nature of the subject precludes any such delusions. What follows is a highly interpretive synthesis based on my reconceptualization of a tremendous amount of research. This work is offered as one student's guide to thinking about literacy. I hope it stimulates discussion and controversy and many efforts to revise its own explicit revisionism. Much is at stake-not only our comprehension but also our confronting the present and framing options for tomorrow. It is to the future that this book is dedicated. In this respect, we must heed well these poignant words of author Nadine Gordimer:

The kind of education the children've rebelled against is evident enough; they can't spell and they can't formulate their elation and anguish. But they know why they're dying. You were right. They turn away and screw up their eyes, squeal 'Eie-na!' when they're given an injection, but they kept on walking towards the police and the guns. You know how it is they understand what it is they want. You know how to put it. Rights, no concessions. Their countr!, not ghettos allotted within it, or tribal 'homelands' parcelled out. The wealth created with their fathers' and mothers' labour and transformed into a white man's dividend. Power over their lives instead of a

destiny invented, decreed and enforced by white governments-Well, who among

viii

Preface those who didn't like your vocabulary, your methods, has put it as honestly? Who are they to make you responsible for Stalin and deny your Christ?*

HARVEy J. Gnepr

A note on documentation:This book is a critical, selective synthesis of a great deal of research. No complete body of references can therefore be appended. The notes are full but hardly a complete guide to my research and reading. They are mostly illustrative. A fuller approach to citations would have made a lengthy book prohibitively long. Readers who are interested in further documentation and bibliography should consult my Literacy in History: An Interdisciplinary Research Bibliography (New York: Garland Publishing, l98l). For additional efforrs at relating the past, present, and future of literacy, see my Literacy and Social Development in the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, l98l); Robert F. Arnove and Graff, eds., National Literacy Campaigns: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (New York: Plenum Publishing Co., 1987); and my collection of essays, The Labyrinths of Literacy (Sussex: Fulmer Press, 1987).

*Rosa Burger's imaginary conversation with her dead father during 1976 Soweto School children's riots. Nadine Gordimer, Burger's Daughter (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1980), p. 349.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Even attempting a project of this scope represents a challenge not only to one's own literacy but to the limits of an individual's knowledge and understanding. For one such as I, primarily a student of comparative modern social history, even to contemplate such an enterprise required the assistance and support of many people and institutions. I want them all to recognize and accept my gratitude, even though doing so in no way implicates them in my sins of commission and omission. Without their assistance and encouragement, this project could not have been completed. For those whom I neglect to mention here, I offer my apologies; this acknowledgment is as complete as memory and notes permit. All who contributed in one or another way to The Literacy Myth: Literacy and Social Structure in the NineteenthCentury City (1979) and Literacy and History: An Interdisciplinary Research Bibliography (1981) also assisted, at least indirectly, in the preparation and completion of this book; to them also go my thanks. For financial assistance, I acknowledge the important contributions of the American Council of Learned Societies, the Newberry Library, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Academy of Education, and the Spencer Foundation. Most of this book was written during a two-year period of residence at the Newberry Library, Chicago, which provided an almost ideal atmosphere. Bill Towner and Dick Brown deserve the gratitude of numerous scholars who have benefited from the library's collections, staff, support, and community of fellows and users. They certainly have mine. During much of my stay, an incredibly learned and collegial group helped in countless ways, including Barbara Hanawalt, Gordon Whatley, Hank Dobyns, Steven Foster, John Tedeschi, John Aubrey, George Huppert, John Riker, Dick Frost, Fritz Jennings, Dan Smith, Jon Butler, Richard Jensen, Hugh Ormsby Lennon, Ellen Dwyer, Jeffrey Huntsman, and Jim Wells. In particular, Jan Reiff and Harriet Lightman helped me professionally and personally in too many ways to mention. The remainder of this book was written while I was a visiting professor at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, where the staff, students, and faculty extended numerous courtesies and kindnesses, and where Jerry Zaslove and David Wallace merit special thanks, and at the University ofTexas at Dallas. Librarians at these and other institutions greatly eased the burdens of research and reference checking. Among the others who contributed to my research and/or welfare during the long period in which this study was in formation were fellow literacy students Ed Stevens and Lee Soltow, Bill Gilmore, David Cressy, Dan Resnick, David Levine, Egil Johansson, Ken Lockridge, Michael Clanchy, Elizabeth Eisenstein, Roger Schofield, Peter Laslett, M. J. Maynes, Shirley Heath, Jeffrey Brooks, Ben Eklof, Susan Noakes, Dick Venezky, Eric Havelock, Bob Arnove, Natalie Davis, Roger Farr, Armando Petrucci, Attillio Langeli Bartoli, and John Craig. Fellow participants at

x

Acknowledgments

the March 1980 Leicester University History of Literacy special seminar, wonderfully led by Joan and Brian Simon; the July 1980 Library of Congress and National Institute of Education Literacy in Historical Perspective Conference, organized by Dan Resnick and John Y. Cole; and the summer l98l Simon Fraser University SITE program also receive my thanks. I should also like to thank Alison Prentice, Chad Gaffield, Jim Turner, Charles Tilly, Irving Bartlett, Jim Crouse, Paul Mattingly, Maurice Careless, Margery Murphey, Nancy Fitch, Lew Erenberg, Susan Hirsch, Jerry Soliday, Paul Monaco, Allan Sharlin, Bob Black, Elliot Werner and Dan Orlovsky for their friendship and support. As in all my historical work, Michael Katz merits a special note of gratitude. He made much of that possible through his tutelage and friendship. A number of panels and audiences patiently listened to different parts or versions of this book. My ideas were challenged, tested, sharpened, and revised by these encounters. I wish to acknowledge their interest and their helpful reactions: Social Science History Association meetings, L979 and l98l; Seminar on the History of Literacy in Post-Reformation Europe, Leicester University, 1980; Library of Congress Literacy in Historical Perspective Conference, 1980; Annenberg School of Communications and Graduate School of Education Communications Colloquium, University of Pennsylvania, 1980 (thanks to Dell Hymes, George Gerbner, and Robert Shayon); University of Chicago History of Education Workshop, 1979 and 1980 (thanks to John Craig); Newberry Library Fellows Seminar, 1980; American Antiquarian Society Conference on Printing and Society in Early America, 1980; Bard College Conference on Crisis in Literacy: Cultural Hard Times (thanks to Paul Swift, Leon Botstein, and Michael Simpson); History of Education Society meeting, 1981; Tenth World Congress of Sociology, Mexico City, 1982 (thanks to Shirley Heath); the Wellcome Institute Conference on Medicine in the Renaissance, 1982. Thanks, too, to $oups at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and the University of Toronto, 1980 and 1985; the Transformation of European Society Conference, Bellagio, 1984 (thanks to Konrad Jarausch); the University of Delaware, 1980; Fairleigh Dickinson University, l98l;Indiana University, l98l; Illinois State University, l98l; Emory University, l98l; and the University of Massachusetts at Boston, 1981, among others who heard me speak on literacy. Among those who assisted directly and ably in the various phases of manuscript preparation, special thanks go to Carole Loverde, Katy Smyser, Kathleen Mooney, Hollie Hunnicutt, John Bod6, Lauren Bryant, Jill Millong, the Indiana University Press production staff, and Vicki Graff. The contributions of Jane Shelly and Bob Mandel are incalculable. As in all my work, there is a cast in the background whose larger role is often closer to center stage. In this respect, I want especially to thank my parents, my brother, and, incomparably, Vicki Graff. Last of all, a word for Harrison, who succeeded more than anyone else in taking me away from the typewriter and redirecting my frustrations during the final stages.

The

Legacies of

Literacy

PART ONE

し

Sctting the Stage

Classical legacies oflearning and literacy, from Achille Bocchi, . . .

Srrnh)licatunz

qn6/ionn2..

., 1574 (Case *V 1025.091),

blem COilI. Counay o/TbeNeu.bary libtay, Cbicago.

em-

Introduction : Literucy's Legacies In the popular imagination, literacy is the most significant distinguishing feature of a civilized man and a civilized society. Expressions of these attitudes are readily culled from the popular press. . . . The assumption that nonliteracy is a problem with dreadful social and personal consequences is not only held by laymen, it is implicit in the writings of academics as well.l Since popular literacy as earlier noted depends not alone on that alphabet but on instruction in the alphabet given at the elementary level of child development, and since this is a political factor which varies from country to country, the alphabetized cultures are not

all socially literate. . . . for whereas historians who have touched upon literacy

as

a historical phenomenon have commonly measured its progress

in

terms of the history of writing, the actual conditions of literacy depend upon the history not of writing but reading. In dealing with the past, it is obviously much harder to be certain about the practice ofreading, its conduct and extent, than about writing. For the latter can simply exist in an artifact. . . . [Literacy] is a social condition which can be defined only in terms of readership.2

Not long ago anthropologists equated civilization with literacy. Many archaeologists working in the Near East still believe that writing is highly likely to develop as a data-storage technique when a

given level of complexity is reached. This seems to be supported,

for example, by the apparently extensive use of writing for bureaucratic purposes in ancient Egypt. . . . Yet, the evidence from Africa and the New World reveals that complex societies can exist without fully-developed (initially logosyllabic) writing systems and that those early civilizations that lacked writing were of comparable complexity to those that had it . . . there is no obvious reason why some of these should have developed writing systems and not the rest.3

Literacy is for the most part an enabling rather than a causal factor, making possible the development of complex political structures, syllogistic reasoning, scientific enquiry, linear conceptions of reality, scholarly specialization, artistic elaboration, and perhaps certain kinds of individualism and of alienation. Whether, and to what extent, these will in fact develop depends apparently on concomitant factors of ecology, intersocietal relations, and intemal ideological and social structural responses to these.4 For certain uses of language, literacy is not only irrelevant, but is a positive hindrance.5

Literacy's

Legacies

3

THESE STATEMENTS MAY SEEM SWEEpINC and vast, but they are important examples of correctives and revisions only now beginning with respect to understanding the presumed impacts and consequences of literacy.o Until recently, scholarly and popular conceptions of the value of the skills of reading or writing have almost universally followed nolmative assumptions and expectations of vague but powerful concomitants and effects presumed to accompany changes in the diffusion

of literacy. For the last two centuries, they have been intertwined with post-Enlightenment, "liberal" social theories and contemporary expectations of the role ofliteracy and schooling in socioeconomic development, social order, and individual progress. These important conjunctures constitute what I have come to call a "literacy myth."

Along with other tenets of a world view dominant in the West for most of the past two centuries, the "literacy myth" no longer serves as a satisfactory explanation Given the massive ior the place of literacy in socilty, polity, culiure, or

"conorny.T contradictions that complicate our understanding of the world we inhabit, it is hardly surprising that a perceived "crisis" and "decline ofliteracy" rank among the other fears of our day. Now is the time to ask new questions that may lead to new views about literacy and its roles. If the present teaches us nothing else, we must heed the lesson that the presumed places of literacy and schooling are neither sacrosanct nor well understood. That awareness can be tremendously liberating, and is, I think, what is urgently required.

I Literacy is profoundly misunderstood. That is as true for the past as for the present. This misconstrual of the meanings and contributions of literacy, with the revealing contradictions that result, is not only a problem of evidence and data but also a failure in conceptualization and, eYen more, epistemology. Discussions about literacy are surprisingly facile, whether they come from the pen of a Marshall Mcluhan or a contemporary social and educational critic such as Paul Copperman, author of The Literacy Hoox. | find that virtually all such discussions founder because they slight efforts to formulate consistent and realistic definitions of literacy, have little appreciation of the conceptual complications that the subject presents, and ignore the vital role of sociohistorical context. The results of such failures surround us. They preclude our knowing even-the dimensions of qualitative changes in popular aUiiities to read and write today.8 Discussions about literacy levels rarely pause to consider what is meant by literacy. Part of the inattention to context, this failure invalidates most discussions at their outset and permits commentators to use the evidence of changes in such measures as Scholastic Aptitude Tests, undergraduate composition abilities, Armed Forces Qualifying Tests, and random written or textual evidence as appropriate representations of literacy. Whereas the evidence of such measures should not be ignored, these indicators reveal little directly about the skills of literacy: the basic

abilities to read and write. To study and interpret literacy, to the contrary, requires three tasks. Thelrsl is a consistent definition that serves comparatively over time and across space. Basic or primary levels of reading and writing constitute the only flexible and reasonable

4

Setting the Stage

indications that meet this criterion; a number of historical and contemporary sources, while not wholly satisfactory in themselves, can be employed (see Table I.r), including measures ranging from the evidence of written documents, sources that reveal proportions ofsignatures and marks, the evidence ofself-reporting, responses to surveys and questionnaires, and test results.9 Only such basic but systematic and direct indications meet the canons of accuracy, utility, and comparability that we must apply consistently. Otherwise, quantitative and qualitative dimensions and changes cannot be known, and only confusion and distortion result. Some may question the quality of such data; others argue that tests of basic skills are too low a standard to apply. To counter such common objections requires moving to a second task in defining literacy-to stress that it is above all a technology or set of techniques for communications and for decoding and reproducing written or printed materials . Writing alone is not an "agent of change"; its impact is determined by the manner in which human agency exploits it in a specific setting. Moreover, literacy is an acquired skill, in a way in which oral ability or nonverbal, nonliterate communicative modes are not. As I will explain later, we need to be wary of drawing overly firm lines between the oral and the literate.lO Literacy is conceived sometimes as a skill, but more often as representative of attitudes and mentalities. That is suggestive. On other levels, literacy "thresholds" are seen as requirements for economic development, "take-offs," "moderniza-

" political development and stability, standards of living, fertility control, and on and on. The number of asserted consequences and ecological correlations is literally massive. The evidence, however, is much less than the expectations and presumptions, as a review of the literature quickly reveals. tion,

One major contradiction in the literacy-as-a-path-to-development enterprise is the

disparity between theoretical assumptions and empirical findings. When they are attempted, second, the results of macro-level, aggregative, or ecological studies are usually much less impressive than the normative theories and assumptions. Schuman, Inkeles, and Smith's ingenuous effort to account for this disparity is revealing: "Rather than finding literacy to be a factor which completely pervades and shapes a man's entire view of the world, we find it limited to those spheres where vicarious and abstract experience is essentially meaningful. The more practical part of a man's outlook, however, is determined by his daily experiences in significant roles."ll The conclusion is that literacy in the abstract is at most viewed as a technique or set of techniques, a foundation in skills that can be developed, be lost, or stagnate; at worst, it is meaningless. Hence, understanding literacy requires a further, large step: into precise, historically specific materials and cultural contexts. As psychologist M. M. Lewis recognized, "The only literacy that matters is the literacy that is in use. Potential literacy is empty, a void."l2 The first two points are preparations for the main effort, reconstructing the contexts of reading and writing: how, when, where, why, and to whom the literacy was transmitted; the meanings that were assigned to it; the uses to which it was put; the demands placed on literate abilities; the degrees to which they were met; the changing extent of social restrictedness in the distribution and diffusion of literacy; and the real and symbolic differences that emanated from the social condition of literacy among the population. To be sure, answers to

Literacy's

Legacies

5

such questions are not easy to construct; nevertheless, an awareness of their overriding importance is only beginning to appear in some research and discussion. The meaning and contribution of literacy, therefore, cannot be presumed; they must themselves be a distinct focus of research and criticism. Important new research suggests that the environment in which students acquire their literacy has a major impact on the cognitive consequences of their possession of the skill and the uses to which it can be put. For example, formal school education may result in a different set of literacy skills from those obtained through informal learning.l3 Few research areas suffer more than literacy studies from the obstruction to understanding that rigid dichotomizing represents. Consider the common phrases literate and illiterate , witten and otal, pint and script. None of these polar opposites usefully describes actual circumstances; all of them, in fact, preclude contextual understanding. The oral-literate dichotomy is the best example. Despite decades of scholars' proclaiming a decline in the pervasiveness and power of the "traditional" oral culture, it remains equally possible and significant to locate the persisting power

of oral modes of communication.14

Oversimplifying a complicated and sophisticated sociocultural process of interchange and interaction, we can say that Westem literacy wasformed, shaped, and conditionedby the oral world that it penetrated. In earliest times, literacy was highly restricted and a relatively unprestigious craft; it carried little of the association with wealth, power, status, and knowledge that it later acquired. It was a tool, useful firstly for the needs of state and bureaucracy, church, and trade. This "triumvirate" of literacy and writing, although reshaped with the passage of time, has remained incredibly resilient in its cultural and political hegemony over the social and individual functions of literacy and schooling. Yet, it was established and continued in a world in which communications consisted overwhelmingly of the oral and the aural.

As reading and writing began to spread sporadically among the population, their links with the larger cultural world of speech and hearing, and seeing, too, were articulated ever more elaborately. Writing was used to set down speech and to facilitate patterns of thought and logic that were exceedingly difficult without its technology. Even with the encroachment of literacy, the ancient world remained an oral world. This tradition continued from the classical era through the I,ooo years of the Middle Ages and beyond; it is not dead today and may well have been reinforced by the impact of the newer electronic media. The oral and the literate, like the written and the printed, need not be opposed as simple choices. Human history and human developments did not occur in that way. Rather, they allowed a deep, rich process of reciprocal interaction and conditioning as literacy gradually gained acceptance and influence. The poetic and dramatic word of the ancients was supplanted, if not replaced, by a new Word: a religion of Christ rooted in the Book, but propagated primarily by oral preaching and teaching. Analogously, education long remained an oral activity. The written and then printed word were spread to many semiliterates and illiterates via the oral processes, and far more widely than purely literate means could have allowed. For many centuries, reading itself was an oral, often collective activity and not the private, silent one we consider it to be.

TABLE

I.r

Measures of Literacy Measure of Source Census

liter3cy Questions:

read and rvrite, read/rvri te

Entire "adult" pbpulation (in thcory): ages

Country of availability Carrada. [.]nited States

Years of avai Iabili ty

Manuscripts: Nirrctccrrth cetrtury

Additional variables

Age, scx, occupation, hirthplace, religion, marital status, family size ancl

Siguature,/mark

variable, e.9., over

(Canlda I8l"rl,

structulc. residcncc.

20 years. I5 years,

nomic data

l86l only) ■Vills

Population

SignatureTmark

l0

eCo-

ycars

of a