> Probably in 500 BC they said you had to hack at stone with a chisel for cognitive development, and then someone invented the pen and paper.

You are forgetting that in 500 BC literacy rates were well under 10%. Nobody optimized for anyone’s cognitive development.

The only cognitive development people cared about was for the rich (aristocrats, royalty, some merchants, etc). Much of that happened orally through hands-on tutoring by an army of people specifically employed to create the next generation of leaders.

Anyone would thrive with that much resources thrown at them. And I’m pretty sure many of them considered reading and writing beneath them. They got people for that.