--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
wrote:

>
> Utter speculation and probable balderdash.

To think that I once would have been upset by a comment ike that. :)
However, I have found the quote that I was actually looking for and
wasn't able to come up with earlier since the index of this book
does not mention such things as education and literacy...

"By 1270, he had founded a convenient vehicle for such an
organization, the she. Tηis new state-sonsored rural organization,
composed of about fifty households under the directionoof a village
leader known as the she-chang, had as its principal purpose the
stimulation of agricultural production and promoton of reclamation….

Each she had the task of setting up schools for the village boys.
The schools were planned to introduce the peasant children to better
and more efficient means of farming as well as to provide them with
the rudiments of literacy. Although this vision of an educational
system, lying outside the confines of the traditional civil service
examinations, was not fulfilled, it reveals that the concept of a
literate peasantry whose interests the government would protect was
embraced by Khubilai and his advisers. No longer would the
government concern itself exclusively with the nomads." P.121

Morris Rossabi. Khubilai Khan. 1988.

That is what I read - I am not going to defend it. There are obvious
difficulties in getting the straight story about the life and times
of Khubiali khan.

Suzanne