(05-12-2015, 05:52 PM)Mae Wrote: Formal education in many places was historically (yes, yes, I'm going to go there and make a Real World comparison!) for the privileged/upper-class and the religious -- children of poor families were often turned over/pledged to churches for a chance of education. If you were middle-class, you got vocational education, which did include a certain amount of knowing how to read, write, and maths for ledger work and taking orders. Lower-class, you might know what your name looks like and maybe a prayer or two; MAYBE over the course of your lifetime you'd self-teach to recognize fixed signs (name of town living in, types of shops).
This seems like a good match with the game world. I think it's fine to make assumptions about Eorzea on the basis of real history where there's nothing else to go on, since it's like 99% similar.
It also seems consistent with the low literacy rate and lack of large educational institutions. I was also kind of wondering whether there were, say, universities or academies.
