Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/114

 the elementary school and high school curriculum more time is given to English, including reading, grammar, literature, and composition, than to any other two or three subjects in the school course combined. Perhaps the reason why young people read so badly when called upon orally to interpret a page, and care so little for reading, is that they have so much of it. We can all become sated with the most delightful things; I have known boys who ate so much cake and ice cream that they never wanted any again.

Another reason, perhaps, why high school and college students (for the difficulty is not confined to the high school) read so badly and take so little pleasure in reading is because all through their school life their taste is forced, they are made to read what is far beyond their ability to understand and to enjoy, and they are taught to cultivate critical judgment rather than appreciation. They analyze what they read when they should be allowed to give themselves over to the pleasure of reading. They attempt to be critics rather than lovers of books. They are told what is good and what effect it should have upon their minds and their emotions, and they play the hypocrite often by pretending to feel what they are told they should feel.

"What do you think," I asked my fourteen-year-old boys in Sunday School a few years ago, "is the best book in the world? What is the best book you ever read?"

"The Bible," one boy piously answered.