It wasn't unusual for a (home-schooled) pre-teen in the 1700s to know Greek and Latin. I'd love to see some actual evidence for this. A solid command of either

It wasn't unusual for a (home-schooled) pre-teen in the 1700s to know Greek and Latin. I'd love to see some actual evidence for this. A solid command of either language would require on the rough order of 1000 hours of work (or perhaps only 350 if you had a lot of raw talent and studied effectively). This is entirely reasonable for a member of the educated classes in any era. But were ancient Latin and Greek ever common skills among your stereotypical pre-industrial dirt farmers?