It is a modern conceit that intellectual progress has made modern generations smarter than those that preceded them.<p>A hundred years ago, far fewer people got advanced educations but those that did were thoroughly well-versed in the liberal arts (as classically defined), meaning that they had been grounded in Latin, rhetoric, and similar subjects that trained them to be highly articulate in their forms of expression (as is easily seen from a glance at these hearing transcripts).<p>Those who went on to become lawyers, politicians, etc. were indeed elitists but the best among them were highly talented, very bright, and quite capable of making many of our modern politicians look pathetic by comparison in their forms of expression.<p>The 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica is widely regarded as a classic high point in the venerable lineage of that work - whose aim, it is worth recalling, was to gather all the world's knowledge in an advanced and erudite state.<p>They may have used pen and paper back then, or sometimes typewriters - and their knowledge base was far smaller than what we have today - but we have nothing over them in terms of innate intellectual capacity.