Letters to the Editor: Swap some SUVs for a few encyclopedias. That would be better for us all.

One reader hails our parents for valuing knowledge highly — especially at a time when it was far more expensive to access

Even a child who has read a little about the world around us will have worked out the folly of the boom-and-bust capitalist economy. Stock picture

When I was 7, my parents bought the Childcraft books for me. It was a junior encyclopedia from the publishers of the World Book encyclopedia. World Book was another thing some parents purchased at huge expense and no small amount of sacrifice. If a family owned World Book, well now that was a cut above buttermilk. A declaration of war on ignorance.

The World Book salesman called to your house several times before such a quixotic knowledge-seeking household could conceive of taking the plunge. That series of books cost more than most families earned in a month. My children cannot understand that level of investment. They have encyclopediae at their fingertips on their phones.