Working with children, I am shocked about their little knowledge of literature. And we are not talking about Shakespeare, Goethe, or Balzac here. We are talking about BOOKS.
Okay, maybe times are changing. Technologies rise and fall. The last flintstone factury has closed, because no one needs flintstone anymore. Kids know "Heidi" or "Pinoccio" from japanese anime, but have never heard of Johanna Spyri or Carl Collodi. But how in the world shall they be able to write e-mail when they don`t train reading and writing anymore?
And it is not only reading and writing, it is the numbers too. This is what I call "loss in education". Modern times have other tunes. Who cares about Virgil or Aristophanes today? A small bunch of enthusiasts. But enough not to make them forgotten. There will allways be interested ones who discover the riches of our ancestors. But we must give them the tools - not only to dig in the library shelves, but to master modern civilisation.