When do you think the decline began? And why?

The decline was in motion after Wilson changed his mind and led us into WWI.

So many kids, so many unfinished educations in the 14-18 age group, and so many disrupted educations in all the other age brackets. The result was an intentional dumbing down of the books and curriculum. So we see a holding pattern emerge from 1918-1940 where already the hardest words, longer word count and sophistication were knocked down two notches from the 1864-1918 stuff. Part of the reason it happened quickly was educational arena's effort to rewrite history and literature texts to account for "The Great War"

Then it happened again after FDR entered us into World War II as Henry luce coined the phrase just prior. The texts experienced a serious drop as returning kids missed years of education and many schools during this period simply performed very poorly from elementary school on up with the absence of the men and the extra efforts of the women.

Folks complained about the difficulty of the material and the poor grades being seen across the spectrum and another text and curriculum revolution happened dumbing down the text another two notches, removing many words and heavy reading.

Then in the late fifties after Sputnik another textbook cycle appeared with more emphasis on science to make up what was perceived as a real 'education gap' accompanying the 'missile gap' with Russia. Some good science texts emerged as the result of this push, also the How and Why series were made available in drug stores and toy departments to combat scientific and general illiteracy.

The dumbing down can be documented via encyclopedia as well. My 1901 Britannica has over 100 pages alone devoted to Persia. By 1984 that figure is reduced dramatically to 50 pages. The 1901 Britannica has 30 big volumes and the 1984 has 19 medium size volumes covering in-depth knowledge and another 10 for expanded dictionary style coverage - and has to cover all the new topics and history that were created between 1901 and 1984! Naturally, the quality of content goes way down and content is hacked away wholesale with each new edition.

The loss when you can compare side-by-side is palpable and heart-wrenching for those who see how today's mentally-numbed and uninquisitive society came into being.

Take a real early 1st grade reader from the thirties and its thrice as sophisticated as the Dick & Jane postwar stuff with about 4 times the word count. My own California State texts featured 'Mark and Janet' and some of the mind numbing prose I still remember. Mark and Janet are writing stories using (big word here) imagination. Here is some of the text of Mark's story as I recall it from the 1st grade:

Mark Park
Mark Park likes to walk
he likes to walk in the park
He likes to walk in the park at dark
So his friends call him Mark Park
walk in the dark

Mark Park Walks in the dark
He came to a pool in the park
in the pool was a shark
Sparks flew from a shark
in a pool in the park
"I'll get you Mark Park!"
said the shark
who lived in the park.

Mark Park ran out of the park
away from the shark.

THE END

"That's a great story," said father
"a story using imagination."
"Let's hear your story Janet."

The story went something like that. The scary thing is that it has stuck with me all these years. ;-)

The text would be considered classic conservative 'father-centric', 'traditional family' and insensitive to other lifestyles and cultures by today's standards even though it already was 'first-generation politically correct' with both Mark and Janet each having a black friend that made appearances in various stories.

And today's kids can hardly spell or read compared to the mid-20th century standards. They are so busy learning about the MLK and the hole in the ozone layer that it doesn't matter if the spell layer as layir.

Some schools out here don't require cursive writing of students until the 8th grade!!!!! When I was a kid 2nd grade was the final year for printing. Cursive was mandatory in 3rd grade.

The internet/video generation will have a few technological advantages but many literacy handicaps and huge holes in their education one could sail the Mayflower through.

Old texts are the answer. Teaching kids history and literature and basic science using half-century and century old texts gives them a HUGE advantage over their public school classmates. They become the class 'brain' by default due to the inferiority of today's public education system and downloaded homework and curriculum from the internet by today's lazy leftist teachers.