"Absalom is a city with an island attached, it's true. If we could produce enough books, perhaps with the new Fabricate, we could send picture books to everyone's home, and then just pick up the people who naturally learn to read from this?"

"'Picture books'?"

--Oh, wouldn't that be marvelous?

There's no way it's going to happen, of course. But what a beautiful fantasy. 

"Imagine a thick tome where each spread reveals an etching of creature, object, or action on the left, paired with a well-printed word on the right."

Delightful! Absurd! Impossible!

She hasn't ever heard of anyone learning to read on their own. "Sounds like a great idea, as long as you don't force anyone to go to school who doesn't pick up reading from that."

"If there really is a magic way to make them cheap, that might not be the worst option, but frankly it sounds like the kind of cheap solution where a month later you're paying a fortune for knickknacks and nobody benefits except the wizards." 

“Even with magic a book for every home might be too costly… but what about a set of essential books for every village above a certain size?  Maybe the holy texts of virtuous gods, copies of notable decrees and laws, and a few educational primers?  Including a few learning to read ’picture books’ like delegate Coeliaris describes.”

Thea doesn’t have the math or related knowledge to make an estimate of costs herself but maybe someone else will fill in.  She considers delegate Rado’s comment.

“Our country needs more clerics, and every person that can read and learn the teachings of the virtuous Gods is another chance for one of them to see a new potential cleric.  The benefit is clear to me.”

--Okay that one's actually halfway not insane. 

"I have no idea if that's remotely practical," it probably isn't, "but if it were, I think it would make sense." 

"I agree with Delegate Rado, children's books for every household sounds potentially very expensive. And not much substitute for a school system, if most children don't learn to read by looking at them. I've - well, I've heard of people learning to read from mere exposure to books, but I've never seen it." Korva has heard of a lot of things and doesn't particularly trust most of them. "But smaller libraries seem potentially valuable. Of course, if that's in addition to schools and not instead of them, we're now spending more money, not less."

"A village library is even better. I will inquire of our President (or perhaps Ibarra) if this is within the capacity of Fabricate. As it happens, Delegate Tallandria, a number of my colleagues at the Arcanamirium are reading autodidacts, and it would seem a reasonable sieve for wizards."

"Returning to my earlier Proposal; to establish Libraries we need first Identify and Catalog all those Books which exist, and of which Copies can be obtained; and if possible obtain at least one Copy of each such Book; I would propose an Office for the Cataloging of Books and an Imperial Library of All Books, the Office of Chief Librarian of which may be the same Office as that for Cataloging."

"I like your idea. Perhaps we could even mandate that each book and pamplet published beyond a run of say, twenty, is required to send a copy to this imperial library."

Ah, there's the money angle. She knew this whole nonsense about it being cheap was a smokescreen, but she kind of expected them to be able to stick with the lie for more than a handful of minutes. It's her own fault for overestimating them, she supposes.

"And how will Cheliax be affording this, again?"

"That is effectively, a very minor tax on the publication of larger runs on the publisher, for the benefit of all Cheliax. No cost to the state, other than the library space."

Deep breaths, Korva. No having feelings about how you weren't good enough in front of the very powerful wizards who breezed through every academic challenge they ever ran into.

"Look, guys. I am in favor of restoring the existing academy libraries, formally opening them to the public, and cycling out their old books for better ones over time. Cataloging every book sounds like a great project for a country where people can reliably buy bread." And one where everyone has trusted their ability to write things without dying for it for longer than two months, but that's a different argument.

"For the moment, I expect that most of the existing libraries haven't been burnt. We have them, we just need to tell the librarians that we plan to stop crippling them, and let them improve with time."

"But a library is not a school, and they won't do us much good if the vast majority of people can't read. With reading skills, perhaps we can replace a lot of schooling with access to books, but they need the skill in the first place for the books to do any good. It's worth having a school system for that, and that school system shouldn't just be a sieve for people who don't need one in the first place."

Thea mentally runs back through the statements of everyone so far and tries to count them up to make sure the vote will be in favor for what she is about to propose.

“On that topic… Should we have a vote then for: ‘Schools that at minimum teach basic reading skills’?  Not saying that they will or won’t do more, but to establish there is a consensus for that much?”

"I'm not voting for anything of the sort unless we pass a rule saying they can't force anyone to stay there." And probably not even then.

She doesn't take the time to mentally tally, but has the felt sense that that's a coin flip in this room, as it stands.

"Agreed, I think the proposal is a little too vague. Honestly, I would also prefer to talk more about economic feasibility first. Delegate Rado has made some good points about the costs of what we had. If anyone feels that cost is a sticking point, I want to figure out what we can offer before we decide what we should."

Quintana gets a smile.

"Before we break, then. Rado, what times of year is a child's labor least valuable to his parents, and is it the same as when his parents have the least work to do themselves?"

“There’s no such thing as a good time for it. After the harvest and into winter is I suppose probably the least work, but that’s when much of the weaving is done and if the children aren’t there to learn that it’ll still cost far more than not learning their letters. After that, perhaps late spring after the planting? But if you’re imagining some time where children have little to do, it doesn’t exist.”

"On another note, something I would like to do, before our next meeting, is meet with a priest of Abadar about a few things: what expenses Cheliax will actually be able to afford in the long run, which I suspect we are estimating badly on account of the currency crisis, and also whether there exist means by which the schools might be made to pay for themselves. Is there anyone who would want to be a part of that?"

“I’ll do it, I have some notion of accounting and the prices of books from my smuggling operation.”

"I would find such Information a Useful Addition to my Draft Proposals."