plotbunny at crunchtime

[drakensis]

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Illiterate kids could show up, they'd be left severely behind. Teaching the poor to read screwed up the old world order. Much like translating the bible in England to English of all things (the common tongue) screwed up the power of the Catholic Church.

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That's a good point. As David Eddings once put it: Knowledge is Power and only a fool shares Power if he doesn't have to.
The counterpoint to this is that when only a few people know something than it's relatively easy for that something to be lost. Which made public libraries in our world a significant step of the information revolution towards Google-culture.
In 'Training for a Job' it's suggested that a ninja village requires a hospital to survive - but I suspect the core that holds a ninja village together is the mutual access to an large library of jutsu and a well indexed archive.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.