Expanding the American Mind: Books and the Popularization of Knowledge

Chapter 3: A Highly Educated Public

45 3 , a highly educated public Since the settling of the american colonies, americans have valued literacy and education, at least for some members of society. in colonial times, men were far more likely to be literate than women, and whites were far more likely to be literate than Native americans (most of whose cultural traditions were oral and who did not have written languages) or african americans. Slaves were rarely taught to read, and as fear of slave rebellion increased, many southern states made it illegal to teach them. even though this ban was not entirely effective, it certainly prevented most african americans in those states from reading. Free blacks had far higher literacy rates. in addition, city dwellers were generally more literate than the rural population, and the affluent were taught better and longer than the poor.1 as the nation developed, the differences between opportunities offered to urban white males and those available to citizens of color, immigrants, women, and the poor gradually diminished, and the number of americans receiving primary and, later, high school education increased. by the 1920s, almost every american attended elementary school, educators were promoting universal public secondary education as a reasonable goal, and most communities provided free public high schools. as george S. counts wrote in a 1922 report, “the conception of secondary education as education for the selected few, whether by birth or by talent, appears to be giving ground before the assaults of political democracy and the demands of a society of increasing complexity and wealth.” as in the nineteenth century, children of uneducated parents, african americans, and rural young people were the least likely to find high school accessible; girls, however, were more likely to attend high school than boys. compulsory high school for all children through age sixteen was not accomplished nationwide until 1960. equal 46฀฀ a฀highly฀educated฀public quality of public education remains elusive, but by the 1970s court cases had begun to change school funding formulas, and equity is at least on the national agenda.2 after World War ii, the american vision of educational opportunity expanded to include the availability of a college education. increased college attendance was expected to provide a better-educated electorate, to improve the american economy by raising the quality of the workforce, and to heighten america’s chances to compete technologically against the Soviets during the cold War and economically against the germans and Japanese later in the century. equality of opportunity for women and minority students also became a social goal. Whatever the motivations, this broadened educationalpolicywaseffective.beginninginthelate1940s,moreamericans were attending college than even the most optimistic educators had predicted in 1945. While in college, and after leaving, those americans supported an expansion of book publishing that was also unprecedented. Education and Reading Studies of literacy and reading all show that the more education people receive, the more likely they are to read. those who have completed high school read more than those who have not, and those who have attended college read more than those whose education stopped at high school.3 the possible reasons for this relationship are many, and though none of them has been adequately tested, they are probably all correct, at least for some people at some times. One possibility is that people are better educated because they are readers , rather than vice versa. that is, children who develop the habit of reading —because their parents read to them, because a librarian or teacher introduced them to reading, or for some other reason—may be more likely to succeed in school and to continue their education longer. Of course people may develop the habit of reading later in life. We know from the memoirs of writers and other educated readers that a love of books can be formed in one’s adult years. For example, some people became readers because they were given novels in armed Services editions, paperbacks distributed free to service personnel, while in the military during World War ii. the poet and novelist James dickey recalled that he had gone to college to play foot- a฀highly฀educated฀public฀ 47 ball. during the war, though, he began to read, and when he returned he transferred to another university and became a serious student of literature. helen Macinnes, whose work appeared in the armed Services editions, received a letter from a veteran who had read her work as an...