Speed Reading
Nobody actually knows when speed reading was first used, but it might have been a long while in the past. For hundreds of years, reading was the privilege of a small group of the most well-educated individuals in the world, the overwhelming preponderance of whom were monks and priests. This tiny, select group of men protected their privilege and were loathe to train the general public to read. Moreover, throughout those centuries there were relatively few books to read compared with nowadays. Books were also very dear as they all had to be written out by hand. Conceivably the only fact that has not altered is that the Bible was the most common book in existence and even now the Bible is the most popular book.