The 'real' Old west was a corucopia of folks - very few lived up to the ill-educated men so often portrayed by the 'reel' Old West.
Hollywood has its tropes - like the face-to-face showdown in the street, the 'knight errant' lawman, the pretty dance hall girl, the gang of gun toughs - none of which had parallels in the true story - folks that made their way West were tough and pragmatic and much of the killing done was by ambush - often with a shotgun.
Why?
Because these guys weren't stupid and knew that their pistol skills weren't nearly up to the efficacy of a double-barrel, especially face-to-face, and the average man had served in the Civil War, was used to killing and had no compunctions about ridding the place of unpleasantness that might interfere in his life.
If 'Billy Badass' strutted into town loaded for bear - a'la a SASS shoot - he'd've been blown out of his saddle, using the excuse 'He needed killin'...'
That said - most of those on the frontier 'wanted' to learn to read - remember the schoolhouse scene in 'The Cowboys', you'll have seen two old waddies in the back of the class, learning basic schoolwork, because they wanted to be thought of as being educated, because an education was to be prized - it was the mark of a serious man, and while 'making your mark' of an 'X' did suffice on a document - that man 'wanted' to do better, and given the chance, he would seek out the way to do so, and that way was to learn to read, and read they did - they read everything.
The newspapers came on the stage, or with freighters - they may've been dated, but they were read from cover to cover and were discussed at length.
Same's true of magazines - and 'penny dreadfuls' were common.
Arbuckle's Coffee even featured miniature copies of great works - Caesar and Euripides, and others - in the bags of beans - many a man learned to read by campfire light or in a bunkhouse in the winter - taught by his friends.
The 'real' Old West wasn't a cultural graveyard by a long shot, and the country profited as a result.
Scouts Out!