The commencement address of Pulitzer prize winning author David McCullough includes this passionately expressed exhortation:
“Make the love of learning central to your life…. You have had the great privilege of attending one of the finest colleges in the nation…. If what you have learned here makes you want to learn more, well that’s the point. Read. Read, read!”
One of the things that strikes me about this is that he made these comments to the graduates of, what he calls, “ONE of the FINEST colleges in the nation.” (The other is, of course, Michigan State University.) These graduates are the recipients of a top notch liberal arts education, and he is fearful that they will stop reading. That is amazing to me.
What, then, kills the love of reading? Or how have we failed to spark it?
I understand the typical explanations – television, video games, and the like. But there has to be something more basic. The child of mine who loves to read as much if not more as any of my children was the one who played the MOST video games and watched the MOST TV growing up. Something else is at work here.
The obituary for philosopher Mortimer Adler points out that he dropped out of school at age 15. Two years later, after reading Plato, he decided to become a philosopher. So, what was he doing after he dropped out of school? Reading Plato, apparently. What would have happened had he stayed in school?
Winston Churchill did not have grades good enough to enter Oxford or Cambridge, so he went to a military school and became an officer in the British army with a boring deployment to India. What did he do there? Began to read voraciously. The rest is, literally, history. But his passion to learn did not come in school.
For those of you reading this, please help me out: what was it that instilled a love for learning and for reading in you? Or, what killed it? I’d really like to know.
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MagistraCarminae
This is such an interesting question… and one I’m not sure I’ve contemplated much. But the first thing that comes to mind for me is that somewhere along the line, the importance of what I’d now call the “life of the mind”, was instilled in me. It certainly started in my home, where we argued about politics and were constantly challenged to change the world, and where my parents were readers. It was flamed by teachers who understood and saw a spark in me that they encouraged. George Grant says yu must lead if you want your children to read. :-)When you speak of “liberal arts schools”, the classical educator in me must warn that we use that term pretty loosely these days. When you can get through a liberal arts education without ever taking a higher math course, or a real course in philosophy, and majoring in things like hotel management, most of the liberal arts are gone from college. Part of our problem as a culture is the loss of these things. But it is a lot broader than computer games and sound-bite entertainment. It has to do with people not being taught what the life of the mind is or should be, or why it is important.Too tired to continue, but since you asked… Chris
Randy Greenwald
Thanks for taking the time to say something, Chris. I have a BS in English Education from MSU, a degree for which I never once had to read a line of Shakespeare. I hope that had the ‘education’ part of the major been dropped that I might have been required to read something of substance. But still…
Anonymous
My positive memories and influences: *My mum reading-aloud to me during my childhood. My mum was raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, by parents from the Victorian era and she was a child during WWII. My mum loved to read books (and still does!) and with the use of her own imaginataion would write stories. These stories or the classics (as we know them) would then be performed by her and her friends in plays–makeshift costumes and all! I believe her childhood experiences and her appreciation for books, influenced her children’s approach to the arts and reading. I still remember my mum reading-aloud, she had an amazing ability to place the right inflection or tone to a character’s words which (in a child’s mind) brought a story in a book-to LIFE! :-)* I still remember my dad (after he became a Christian) walking into our house carrying bags filled with good books, records and Christian tracts in other languages. He loved to read and he made sure he took the time to do this. I believe that just watching him read, also influenced me. This demonstrated to me that his desire to learn (in a silent way) proved he didn’t have all the answers, which to me was a sign of humility. Also, his desire to purchase good books that were rich in content (for not only himself) but for his wife and his family, impacted me. It was love–in action.He also verbally encouraged my siblings and I to read; but I remember him best for saying (with his thick Scottish accent), “It’s good to read books, but don’t forget to read your BIBLE!” :-)Lastly, my desire to read and learn has developed more in adulthood because of life circumstances during my younger years. My greatest influences for learning have been my teachers and my dad, who learned to play the piano and speak French in his late 50s and before he became ill, he was learning Spanish.I think that my greatest influences have been made by those who have encouraged me to learn; are enthusiastic about what they know; and are generous enough to share what they know-but all in a spirit of humbleness. Thanks for the opportunity to share.Fiona
Rebekah
We used to take half-day trips to the library, and then the other half-day we got to skip our regularly scheduled lessons to read what we’d brought back. 🙂 We always, always were read to, and the stories were read with magnificent melodroma. I loved books so much I suppose because of the interesting places and people I travelled to and was introduced to. My interest in reading has diminished, probably because I’ve gotten lazy, and probably because I got tired of having to read so much in college.