The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-02-16
CIR EthrartaltH Uurnrr
CONDUCTED BY
FRANK PARKER STOCKBRIDGE.
ON FORMING THE HABIT OF READING.


nUERY: Does any one who has not been
* brought up with books, surrounded by books
from early childhood left alone with books that ne
may read not he pleases, really acquire IN.
later years the habit of reading either for recrea
ton or for that somewhat nebulous object described
as 'self-improvementf
, Z am not sure of the answer, though suspect it
is "No." Most people are not habitual book read
ers the combined circulation of the public libraries
of the United States is only about one book per
person per year, the book output Of the publishers
(exrluding Dere MdbIe) perhaps trife more 90.
Readers Nipped in the Bud. " T.. u
1t takes more than two or three books year TO ?
put any one in the "habitual reader class. Yet .
most adult Americans of to-day went to school until
they were IA or ia small minority through high
school and coege-and surely should have acquired
familiarity with books in the course of-aher edd-
cation. 80 ''''
So they did and therein lies the root of the whole
matter; their acquaintance with books is as part
Of an educational process, inflicted upon them by
authority, and therefore to be resisted and escaped
from at the earliest possible moment. 1t is not
merely distaste for such of the standard writ
ers are included in lists Of prescribed reading
that the methods in vogue in most schools tend to
nculcate but dstaste for books of any Sort or at
least distrust of them, except they may directly
and with immediate profit bear upon the readers
trade or occupation.
The Readers Millennium.
Some day an enlightened library board and .
still more enlightened school board will get together
and find ways Of putting books, interesting books,
the books children really want to read, into every
schoolhouse And these books will be placed not in
classrooms or. study halls in room labelled
Library" and presided over by a young woman
anxious to give good advice as to what to read but
OF open shelves arranged in alcoves along one end
OF the big playroom, along the halls and about the
entrance ways in all sorts of handy, convenient
places where children can pick them up and look at
them and drop them again without regard to
whether they 60 back in the same place on the
shelves or not -
There won t be any restrictions rules of any
kind any one may take any book anywhere, carry
it into classes, take it homeeven leave it out on
the playground without being too severely penal
lied for these books will be considered as not pri
marty property, to be receipted and accounted
for, but as wells from which it is every child's in
alienable right to drink freely as from the dub
bling fountain outside the classroom door.
A Century of Contacts. - 80 So
They will not be ''children's books either, or
collections especially selected being adapted to
immature minds; they viii include all the true
books and beautiful books ever written, the books
that children who can get hold Of them read with
delight and surprise their elders by comprehending
For we grownups seldom realize our children are
anything but babies until they shock us by doing
the identical things we did when we consciously
cast off immaturfty.
1t would take only couple Of generations, or at
most century, of this sort of universal exposure
books TO enmesh the whole human race in the tolls
Of the reading habit.