you’re saying the complaint is that in that era it was also thought of as a new phenomenon.

That makes some sense - it’s been a declining slope, with a huge drop-off point.

But was there also evidence of less-competent people coming out of the end of the machine that’s supposed to produce people to keep the civilization functional?

Probably happened at one time or another - but it was probably also considered a problem……

My original “as a default” verbiage is doing a lot of heavy lifting, but is there for a reason.