This is a scan of an 1885 one room school house 8th grade math book. I wonder how many of those today with High School diplomas could handle it.

However, there is the matter of motivation. When you look thru the problems posed, the application in the real lives that were lived is pretty obvious. If you are engaged in rural life today, much of it is still very relevant. If urban, and we see systemic collapse, life is again, as we see here, going to rely on local resources. YMMV; metro areas are not always surrounded by fertile farmland, depend on foreign imports, electricity, water, sewer, and fuel; life will be difficult, if not impossible. But towns and smaller cities, up to about 50,000, surrounded by farmland, can be entirely supplied by draft animals and wagons if need be.

Today, agribusiness gets 155 bushels of corn/acre. But without diesel, petrochemicals, fertilizer, etc, its zero. In 1885, they expected only 21 bu/acre, but we do have better seed now, so those who know how, can expect more like 40-50. Today, the average agronomist grows enuf to feed 100 people; but without modern infrastructure, it'd be more like 25 for every farmer. Course, if we had the kind of collapse that makes this necessary, there'd be plenty of unemployed to do the work.

This little book is a starting point at how much work there'd be to do, and how long it'd take.