Final answer:
By the end of the nineteenth century, industrialized societies had achieved high levels of literacy through public education systems. Countries like Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands had near-universal literacy rates by 1910.
Step-by-step explanation:
By the end of the nineteenth century, industrialized societies had created systems of public education that were able to instill basic literacy in a majority of their populations. In Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands, nearly all people were literate by 1910. Ninety percent of adult Japanese men could read. More than 80 percent of the French and Belgian populations could as well. Even in countries that were slower to industrialize, like Italy, by the beginning of the twentieth century, more than half the population could read.