“The modern idea of testing a reader’s ‘comprehension,’ as distinct from something else a reader may be doing, would have seemed an absurdity in 1790 or 1830 or

“The modern idea of testing a reader’s ‘comprehension,’ as distinct from something else a reader may be doing, would have seemed an absurdity in 1790 or 1830 or 1860. What else was reading but comprehending?” —Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death