Editing Lost Generation (section)

====Literacy and education====
[[File:Snickarkrogen skola 1900.jpg|thumb|Class photo taken at a school in Sweden (1900)]]

[[Child labour law|Laws restricting child labour]] in factories had begun to appear from around 1840 onwards<ref>{{Cite web |last=O'Sullivan |first=Michael E. |date=1 January 2006 |title=Review of Kastner, Dieter, Kinderarbeit im Rheinland: Entstehung und Wirkung des ersten preußischen Gesetzes gegen die Arbeit von Kindern in Fabriken von 1839 |url=https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11358 |access-date=14 November 2015 |website=www.h-net.org |archive-date=3 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170903162421/https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11358 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Hindman |first=Hugh |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_MrfBQAAQBAJ |title=The World of Child Labor: An Historical and Regional Survey |date=18 December 2014 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-45386-4}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Timeline |url=http://gbchildlaborinamerica.weebly.com/timeline.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151121025811/http://gbchildlaborinamerica.weebly.com/timeline.html |archive-date=21 November 2015 |access-date=14 November 2015 |website=Child labor in the U.S}}</ref> and by the end of the 19th century, [[compulsory education]] had been introduced throughout much of the Western world for at least a few years of childhood.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Mass Primary Education in the Nineteenth Century |url=https://www.sociostudies.org/almanac/articles/mass_primary_education_in_the_nineteenth_century/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210520183852/https://www.sociostudies.org/almanac/articles/mass_primary_education_in_the_nineteenth_century/ |archive-date=20 May 2021 |access-date=20 May 2021 |website=www.sociostudies.org}}</ref><ref name="EUR">{{Cite book |last1=Grinin |first1=Leonid E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NtZbDgAAQBAJ&q=Globalistics+and+globalization+studies:+Global+Transformations+and+Global+Future |title=Globalistics and globalization studies: Global Transformations and Global Future. |last2=Ilyin |first2=Ilya V. |last3=Herrmann |first3=Peter |last4=Korotayev |first4=Andrey V. |publisher=ООО "Издательство "Учитель" |year=2016 |isbn=978-5-7057-5026-9 |page=66 |access-date=20 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210520183852/https://books.google.com/books?id=NtZbDgAAQBAJ&q=Globalistics+and+globalization+studies:+Global+Transformations+and+Global+Future. |archive-date=20 May 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref> By 1900, levels of illiteracy had fallen to less than 11% in the United States, around 3% in Great Britain, and only 1% in Germany.<ref>{{Cite web |title=National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) |url=https://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210506171358/https://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp |archive-date=6 May 2021 |access-date=20 May 2021 |website=nces.ed.gov |language=EN}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Lloyd |first=Amy |title=Education, Literacy and the Reading Public |url=https://www.gale.com/binaries/content/assets/gale-us-en/primary-sources/intl-gps/intl-gps-essays/full-ghn-contextual-essays/ghn_essay_bln_lloyd3_website.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210520183852/https://www.gale.com/binaries/content/assets/gale-us-en/primary-sources/intl-gps/intl-gps-essays/full-ghn-contextual-essays/ghn_essay_bln_lloyd3_website.pdf |archive-date=20 May 2021 |access-date=20 May 2021 |quote=...by 1900 illiteracy for both sexes [in England and Wales] had dropped to around 3 percent... by the late nineteenth century, the gap [in illiteracy] between England, Wales and Scotland had narrowed and closed}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Parallel worlds: literacy as a yardstick for development |url=https://ww1.habsburger.net/en/chapters/parallel-worlds-literacy-yardstick-development |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210520183903/https://ww1.habsburger.net/en/chapters/parallel-worlds-literacy-yardstick-development |archive-date=20 May 2021 |access-date=20 May 2021}}</ref> However, the problems of illiteracy and lack of school provision or attendance were felt more acutely in parts of Eastern and Southern Europe.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mironov |first=Boris N. |date=1991 |title=The Development of Literacy in Russia and the USSR from the Tenth to the Twentieth Centuries |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/368437 |journal=History of Education Quarterly |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=229–252 |doi=10.2307/368437 |issn=0018-2680 |jstor=368437 |s2cid=144460404 |access-date=20 May 2021 |archive-date=30 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211130110338/https://www.jstor.org/stable/368437 |url-status=live|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite web |date=May 2019 |title=Moving towards mass literacy in Spain, 1860–1930 |url=https://cepr.org/sites/default/files/discussion_papers/BeltranDiezMartinezTiradoworkshopBdECEPR_short.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210520183902/https://cepr.org/sites/default/files/discussion_papers/BeltranDiezMartinezTiradoworkshopBdECEPR_short.pdf |archive-date=20 May 2021 |access-date=20 May 2021}}</ref>

Schools of this time period tended to emphasise strict discipline, expecting pupils to memorize information by rote. To help deal with teacher shortages, older students were often used to help supervise and educate their younger peers. Dividing children into classes based on age became more common as schools grew.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Education – Western education in the 19th century |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/education/Western-education-in-the-19th-century |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210416211705/https://www.britannica.com/topic/education/Western-education-in-the-19th-century |archive-date=16 April 2021 |access-date=20 May 2021 |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |language=en}}</ref>

However, while elementary schooling was becoming increasingly accessible for Western children at the turn of the century, secondary education was still much more of a luxury. Only 11% of American fourteen to seventeen-year-olds were enrolled at High School in 1900, a figure which had only marginally increased by 1910.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The 1900s Education: Overview {{!}} Encyclopedia.com |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/culture-magazines/1900s-education-overview |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210524012723/https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/culture-magazines/1900s-education-overview |archive-date=24 May 2021 |access-date=7 June 2021 |website=www.encyclopedia.com}}</ref> Though the school leaving age was officially meant to be 14 by 1900, until the First World War, most British children could leave school through rules put in place by local authorities at 12 or 13 years old.<ref>{{Cite web |date=12 April 2008 |title=The school leaving age: what can we learn from history? |url=https://www.historyextra.com/period/the-school-leaving-age-what-can-we-learn-from-history/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210608002058/https://www.historyextra.com/period/the-school-leaving-age-what-can-we-learn-from-history/ |archive-date=8 June 2021 |access-date=7 June 2021 |website=HistoryExtra |language=en}}</ref> It was not uncommon at the end of the 19th century for Canadian children to leave school at nine or ten years old.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Oreopoulos |first=Philip |date=May 2005 |title=Canadian Compulsory School Laws and their Impact on Educational Attainment and Future Earnings |url=https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/pub/11f0019m/11f0019m2005251-eng.pdf?st=VMTvj4NC |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210827121003/https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/pub/11f0019m/11f0019m2005251-eng.pdf?st=VMTvj4NC |archive-date=27 August 2021 |access-date=8 June 2021 |website=Statistics Canada}}</ref>