Study math for long enough and you will likely have cursed Pythagoras's name, or said "praise be to Pythagoras" if you're a bit of a fan of triangles.
But while Pythagoras was an important historical figure in the development of mathematics, he did not figure out the equation most associated with him (a2 + b2 = c2). In fact, there is an ancient Babylonian tablet (by the catchy name of IM 67118) which uses the Pythagorean theorem to solve the length of a diagonal inside a rectangle. The tablet, likely used for teaching, dates from 1770 BCE – centuries before Pythagoras was born in around 570 BCE.
to be fair, being "city folk" vs. being "rural" doesn't really qualify as an excuse for different levels of education. if it is the case anywhere (and admittedly it seems to be) that's a testament to the need for improvement of the education system.
Availability of schools and ability (or willingness) to pay for good teachers very much does correlate to levels of education available in different places.
You're not wrong. Nasty negative feedback loop :(