Language Hat posted a quote from memoirs of prince Peter Alexeivich Kropotkin, a prominent Russian anarchist.

Later, when we were spreading socialist doctrines amongst the peasants, I could not but wonder why some of my friends, who had received a seemingly far more democratic education than myself, did not know how to talk to the peasants or to the factory workers from the country. They tried to imitate the "peasants' talk" by introducing a profusion of so-called "popular phrases," but they only rendered themselves the more incomprehensible.

Nothing of the sort is needed, either in talking to peasants or in writing for them. The Great Russian peasant perfectly well understands the educated man's talk, provided it is not stuffed with words taken from foreign languages. What the peasant does not understand is abstract notions when they are not illustrated by concrete examples. But my experience is that when you speak to the Russian peasant plainly, and start from concrete facts,—and the same is true with regard to village folk of all nationalities,—there is no generalization from the whole world of science, social or natural, which cannot be conveyed to a man of average intelligence, if you yourself understand it concretely. The chief difference between the educated and the uneducated man is, I should say, that the latter is not able to follow a chain of conclusions. He grasps the first of them, and maybe the second, but he gets tired at the third, if he does not see what you are driving at. But how often do we meet the same difficulty in educated people.
Memoirs of a Revolutionist by P. Kropotkin. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co. 1906.

Not too much to add, besides pointing out obvious similarities between teaching peasants to make a revolution, and teaching beginners to write a Java program. :)