From Thomas Jefferson to Harry Potter
A Google search for Thomas Jefferson and the phrase “education of women” reveals that our distinguished Founding Father had little use for reading novels. In an 1818 letter to Nathaniel Burwell, Jefferson writes:
“When this poison infects the mind, it destroys its tone and revolts it against wholesome reading. Reason and fact, plain and unadorned, are rejected. Nothing can engage attention unless dressed in all the figments of fancy… The result is a bloated imagination, sickly judgment, and disgust towards all the real businesses of life.”
Jefferson makes some exception for “useful vehicles of a sound morality.” But he refers to the rest as “this mass of trash.”
That was 200 years ago. As a teacher in L.A. today, I am desperate to get students to read. Children today seem to despise the printed word, and their attention can hardly be captured by anything that does not writhe, scream, or bleed. Like Madonna’s character in A League of Their Own, I am ready to hand out the trashiest novels I can legally distribute if the phrase “her milky breast” can lure todays’ jaded adolescent into deciphering a few lines of code.
I am, in fact, so despairing of modern youth’s hatred for reading, I have a policy in my classroom: if you are not working, but you are reading a substantial book, I will pretend not to notice. Today I caught a young man with the 7th Harry Potter book tucked surreptitiously in his lap. I was dazzled. It’s not Gameboy, it’s not an iPod, it’s… dare I believe… it’s a book?? He may well end up with a bloated imagination and sickly judgment, but this is L.A. Everyone I meet is like that. This kid will at least be able to READ. And in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
