Review of Article:  “The Importance of Books,” by Pearl Buck

Publication:  Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (1908-1984) 42, no. 2 (1949): 167–78

Subjects:  Readership, Reading, Censorship, Freedom and Democracy, Dictatorships/Tyranny, Learning How to Read, Developing the Ability to Read, and World Understanding

Note:  Read the Article Free on the JSTOR Database.  You need to establish a free account to do so.  The link to the article is: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40188368)

Background: Pearl Buck (1892-1973) was an American writer. She is best known for her novel, The Good Earth (1931), which is about family life in the 1920s in a rural village in China.  The novel won her the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, being the first American woman to win the Prize.  Buck’s article in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society is a reprint of a speech she presented before the Atlantic City Conference of the American Library Association in June of 1948.

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INTRODUCTION

Pearl Buck’s article is a state of affairs report on America and on the world in the late 1940s.  She is writing about people’s freedom, education, and humanity, all of which have a meaningful connection to reading books. She has strong views on her subject matter and her writing is direct and insightful.  She will be quoted frequently in the review of her article.

I will organize my review of Buck’s article as follows:

I.  The Background Given For Assessing the Affairs in America and in the World: (A) Non-Readership of Books by Americans and, (B) The World Divided Politically

II.  The Looming Reality of Censorship in What Kinds of Books to Read and What Are Good Books to Read

III.  The Necessity of Teaching the Ability to Read

IV.  Entering A New Era in History of World Understanding and Its Challenges

V.  Concluding Paragraph to the Article 

I.  THE BACKGROUND GIVEN FOR ASSESSING THE AFFAIRS IN AMERICA AND IN THE WORLD: (A) Non-readership of Books by Americans and, (B) The World Divided Politically

A.  Non-readership of Books by Americans

Buck finds that Americans are for the most part non-readers of books.  Americans read the newspaper headlines and popular magazines, as well as use media sources for information, which at the time of the article were radio and films.

The non-readership of books in America has a cause:  there is a lack of ease in reading a book that many Americans have when transitioning from comprehending communication transmitted verbally to comprehending communication transmitted silently in print.  The lack of ease is because people’s ability to read books has not been developed enough.  This is a serious concern in a democracy that requires literacy.  To quote Buck:

“… in a literate democracy, where reading is required of every normal-minded citizen, books ought to be as necessary as bread.  We cannot understand the present or approach the future with any sort of common sense unless we have the that material in our minds which can only be got from books.  Locked away in books are not only all the facts which the human mind has brought together and comprehended, but in books alone are to be found the creative thinking of the finest minds.  I use the word locked, for reading is the key ….”[i]

B.  A Politically Divided World

Buck finds a world divided into political blocks, bringing divisiveness in the relationships among countries and with military power at the forefront as the most persuasive reason for political power.  This is fragmenting the unity of the world and Buck strongly believes in the world as a unified place despite the deliberate disunity.  And, if disunity is the current state of world affairs, this is because bad players (i.e., dictators) in world affairs are relying on the ignorance of the people ruled and the reason people ruled are ignorant is that they do not read books.  To quote Buck:

In our strange times when militarists and political aspirants and greedy men are struggling to divide our world into many parts, the world remains one, more and more is this evident.  The chief reason why plots and plans of dictators succeed is because the people remain ignorant and the reason people are ignorant is because they do not read books…”[ii]

In establishing the backdrop to her article Buck is establishing that human understanding, knowledge, and humanity are “locked away” from people by an undeveloped reading ability and by political/societal conditions.  This is not progress and her analysis will say why this is so and what needs to be done to achieve progress.

II.  THE LOOMING THREAT OF CENSORSHIP IN WHAT KINDS OF BOOKS TO READ AND WHAT ARE GOOD BOOKS TO READ

If people are not reading books, then what books are they to read?  Buck believes people are entitled to read all kinds of books.  She is unequivocally clear that to prescribe what people are to read is detrimental and sets in motion the path to censorship, which is a misuse of power, be that power secular or religious.  To quote her:

“…No one should say this book is good and that book is bad for all.  It is dangerous in a democracy for any group to set itself to tell people what they should read.  Churches should not do it and government should not do it.  Such censorship is the first step towards book-burning throughout history and book- burning has been the sign of a dictator.”[iii]

History, Buck says, shows that there is a tried-and-true path to establishing censorship by dictators and tyrants. First people are told what they are to read from recommended reading lists by the government or other organization.  Such recommendations have nothing to do with “…the authenticity or amusement, or any of the proper uses of books.  No, they recommend books because these books express the rules of the organization-members should read them.”[iv] Then what follows the recommended reading lists is the banning of certain books, and very soon thereafter comes the burning of books.

The intent of those in power to censor and destroy books is to stifle the thought of the people.  To quote Buck:

“Censorship of books means censorship of the mind, and censorship of the mind is what every tyrant wants, wherever he is found, and he can be found in any country.  Sometimes he wears the robe of a minister of religion, sometimes he wears a business suit, or a soldier’s uniform, sometimes he is a government bureaucrat or official … [We] must watch for him wherever he is, and the sign of censorship of books is a sign of his presence.  The freedom of people everywhere is closely linked with the freedom from the censorship of books …”[v]

What are good books to read?  These are the books that people choose to read and enjoy reading.  Buck is unequivocally clear that to circumscribe people’s reading is suppression of the individual thought and the conduct of both writers and readers:

“Not through books must controls come upon the individual.  I must emphasize the dangers of allowing books to be used as the tools of discipline for any reason whatsoever.  To allow this means that the next step will be pressure put on writers not to write, that dangerous pressure which today is stifling literature and music and art in Soviet Russia, and which, whenever it has occurred in history, has meant the beginning of a dark age not only for the arts but for the people.  For the arts, and chief among them literature, are the field of freedom not only for those who create, but for those who participate in creation by receiving and enjoying-or rejecting-what is created.”[vi]

In America Buck finds there are signs of incipient movements of censorship, but these movements do not progress to gaining power.  Americans are free to read the books they choose to read.

III.  THE NECESSITY OF TEACHING THE ABILITY TO READ

Though Americans are free to choose what they read, many Americans do not choose to read books because they do not know how to read well enough:

“Too many of our people do not know how to read.  They can read something they must read, but they don’t know how to read well enough for pleasure.  Every teacher will tell you that teaching children to read is the basic difficulty in education.  Many a pupil with good enough mind fails because literally he doesn’t read well enough to get his mind educated.  He cannot understand processes because he cannot read them with ease.  You would be surprised at the number of people who turn away from a book which they would enjoy because it looks too hard to read.  I am not speaking of technical books alone-I am speaking of books of thought and fancy.  Yet reading is basic to democracy unless people keep themselves informed, and the only way to be informed is to read.  When the majority of people cannot read well enough to keep themselves informed, then democracy is in danger.”[vii]

This leads Buck to assert that how to teach the ability to read is to be the primary aim of education from start to finish.  To make this so requires the study and revision of educational policies and approaches.  In particular the teaching of how to read needs to start and be concentrated in early childhood education.  Too many children do not learn to read:

We are graduating far too many children from the grades who cannot read and, if people cannot read in the grades they will never learn.  They will go through life book blind.  And because they are book blind they will never understand what is going on around them in the world and why it is going on and what may be expected as a result of what is going on.  They will be forever at the mercy of demagogues and politicians of all sorts.  They will be at the mercy of “They say” and “I heard.”  They will never know for themselves.”[viii]

From her observations of elementary education, Buck concludes children are exposed to too many subject areas early on in their education and struggle because of this with their reading.  She believes that children should be taught one subject at the beginning of their education:  the ability to read.  To quote her:

“I should like to see the first years of school devoted, other than physical activity, only to reading, so that the child reads as easily and as instinctively as he breathes, before any other requirement is put upon him.  I should like him to feel that reading is the door to all sorts of interesting knowledge and enjoyment, that in reading books he can find endless pleasure, that books are printed by the million in every subject and that all he has to do is pick up a book to find what he wants.”[ix]

After children learn how to read well enough in their early education-that is that they gravitate naturally, or instinctively, towards reading- then children are to be given other subjects to learn.  Buck says children in taking on varying subjects all at once without the developed ability to read will encounter difficulties in reading the varying subject matter, will form a distaste towards reading given those difficulties, and will ultimately abandon reading books after completing school.  People should not live a life excluding the reading of books.

Changes in educational practices will take a time.  Until those changes are implemented Buck believes there are intermediary steps that can be taken.  The main one is that the teaching of reading be part of the responsibility of public libraries, with public libraries having hours made available where reading is taught by reading teachers.  This is not to hold reading classes, which to Buck has the negative connotation of schooling that would be distasteful to the public, but hours where children to adults can receive assistance in learning how to read.

For adults the improving of their reading as continuing education is important.  Particularly for adults struggling with comprehending individual words.  This struggle with individual words needs to be surmounted in order that adults can connect the meaning of words into the ideas being offered when reading a book.  For Buck we read for ideas, which is part and parcel of a developed instinct to read:

“Adults need help in reading too.  Many of them read painfully word by word, each word a thing to be separated in the mind.  But reading, as anyone knows who has made reading an instinct, is not done word by word.  It is not done line by line or paragraph by paragraph or page by page-it is done idea by idea.

When we listen to someone talk we don’t separate each word from the other-we hear meaning, we leap from idea to idea.  So it should be with the printed word as with the heard word.  Adults can be given help to accomplish this, and the very thought that they are learning how to read over again more quickly and thoroughly at the same time-for slow readers lose the idea in word-to-word effort-will inspire them to become readers of books.

Sound education is always the result of enjoyment.  We don’t begin to be educated or to educate ourselves, until we begin to enjoy the process and the result.”[x]

IV.  ENTERING A NEW ERA IN WORLD HISTORY OF WORLD UNDERSTANDING AND ITS CHALLENGES 

Buck believes the world is entering into a new era in history of world cooperation through understanding the various people and countries of the world.  This era is being hindered by a divided world causing distress among the world’s people.  The distress is worse in countries where freedoms have been curtailed (e.g., the then Soviet Union and its satellite countries).

Buck believes America is a contributor to this failure of progressing towards a unified world based on world understanding.  There is in America, as well in the world, a divided vision on what the world should be.  The division is between those who envision mutual cooperation among countries leading the way to a world democracy, and those with an opposing vision who see military might and aggression as necessary in order to dominate other countries in the world.  Buck thinks this opposition vision frightful and will lead to worse rather than better government:

“Today the knowledge that a man can be powerful without being stronger or wise or courageous is a frightful truth.  Anybody with a better weapon than the next man can be powerful.

Today, more than ever before in human history, all people are in danger from individuals who are trigger happy.  They swagger about in every country.”[xi]

Also, Buck calls those favoring military might and dominance over others “power lovers” who do not contribute to world understanding.  It takes wisdom, gained through educating the heart and mind to achieve world understanding:  “Those who are wiser and who understand the world as a community must be on guard against power-lovers.  Yet the first essential in making this world community a reality is the heart which can feel community with other human beings and the mind which wills to learn about them.”[xii]

World understanding can be an overused phrase in talk, but under used in its actualization, amounting to being an empty phrase.  Further, organizations dedicated to promoting and bringing about world understanding will not achieve world understanding solely on their existence as organizations with the intent to do so.  World understanding will only start first by people educating their hearts and minds to understand and accept other people in the world.  This requires the attainment of the internal human qualities of humility and humanity:

“To have world understanding we must understand with humility the peoples of the earth, what they are and why they are.  Organizations are not the way to understand the world.  You can understand the world only by first having the attitude for understanding.  This is one of simple humanity.”[xiii]

Buck sees Americans not as a humble or humane people, being convinced of American superiority and privilege.  Such convictions are side-stepping the issue of world understanding.  The conviction required for world understanding is in believing all people in the world are equal in worth and not that a select few countries and peoples are chosen over other countries and peoples of the world for their worth:

“You can understand the world only by first having in yourself the attitude of understanding.  This attitude is one of simple humanity.  An American is not better or worse than a citizen of any other land.  We are only people.  In science we have progressed further than any country except Germany, but in other ways we are backward.  In world feeling we are behind other peoples of the East.  Our culture is only average.  I say these things because only when we are humble enough to see ourselves as one among the world’s people and not above them can we really begin to understand the world.”[xiv]

Despite her concern about Americans working towards world understanding, Buck sees two ways Americans can progress towards world understanding.

First, Buck has seen enough evidence that Americans are receptive towards the peoples of other countries and are generous in providing support to the peoples of other countries.  But these qualities are not substitutes for world understanding and need augmenting through reading books in world history and reading books about peoples of other countries.  To quote Buck:

“…if we can get people to reading books, we can get them to understanding that other people are as human as we are and want the same kind of world.

What sort of books will people need to read?  Well, first of all, history.  For example, we cannot understand why the Russians are what they are, or what they seem to use to be, without knowing Russian history.  But this is true of all people.  We are incomprehensible, too, to other people.  In fact, I know that we are considered the most incomprehensible people on earth, after Soviet Russia.

Next, I think we should persuade and cajole people into reading about other peoples, anything which makes those peoples seem human and real.  The sense of common humanity is needed.”[xv]

The second way is for Americans to recognize that America’s scientific progress and America’s competitiveness have brought prosperity, but have also dehumanized Americans.  Americans are more concerned about participating in the by-products of science and competitiveness which are technology and material wealth at the expense of not recognizing the common humanity they share with other people in the world.  Americans need to counteract their dehumanization:

“I think that science tends to dehumanize us, and competition dehumanizes.  The very fundamentals of our life, the things which have made us rich and strong and prosperous, also dehumanize us.  We have to counterbalance this effect of our general life by special efforts to restore the balance of humanity to our hearts and souls if we are to be able to grasp the reality of world understanding and as I said, next to people themselves, books which describe people will helps us…[xvi]

V.  CONCLUDING PARAGRAPH TO THE ARTICLE

Buck concludes her article as follows:

The two questions which face us are:  how can we teach people to read books?  How can we persuade them to read books?  For our most precious human treasure, the story of all history and all imagination, lies between covers of books, and no generation should grow to physical maturity without sharing this treasure.”[xvii]

Books to Buck are the embodiment of human knowledge and understanding, and the ability to read books for knowledge and understanding is necessary for the freedom of individual thought and for the freedom of the individual to live in society.

In her article Buck does not give any author of a book or any title of a book as indicative of merit or as being exemplar.  She is not interested in literary selection, taste, style, or judgement.  Instead, she is interested in what is fundamental for all people to have:  the educated and developed inner abilities to read books; and the educated and developed inner human qualities of humanity and humility.  The inner education and development of reading abilities and qualities of humanity and humility will outwardly display themselves in the thought and conduct of people who will decide for themselves what to read and who will decide for themselves how to work and progress towards having an equitable and free society and world.

Buck knows that the proper societal conditions need to be set by educational, governmental, and other institutions to educate and develop people.  This is an essential part of what a democracy seeks to achieve. And, as Buck warns, it will be not be an essential part of authoritarian rule that wants to maintain power over people to educate and develop people.

Buck knows what freedom and democracy are and is defending them, as well as asserting what the requisite requirements of freedom and democracy are:  learning how to read; reading books for knowledge, understanding, and to be an informed citizen; and possessing the qualities of personal humility and humanity to understand peoples of other countries since all people are one in the world.  Her article is a revealing and informing look at freedom and democracy.

Also, scientific research findings on reading have corroborated Buck’s insights about reading with ease and reading for ideas as important attributes for readers.  Reading with ease and for ideas are termed “fluency” by scientific research.  Fluency is defined by the International Reading Association’s online glossary as (https://www.literacyworldwide.org/get-resources/literacy-glossary):  “The ability to act (speak, read, write) with ease and accuracy.  Research indicates that oral reading fluency is the ability to read text accurately, with sufficient speed, prosody, and expression. It is an essential component of reading because it permits the reader to focus on constructing meaning from the text rather than on decoding words.”

I have recently read Daniel T. Willingham’s, The Reading Mind:  A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads (Jossey-Bass, 2017).  The book presents the basic scientific research findings on the cognitive processes involved in reading.  In doing this the intent of the book is to show what developed reading abilities distinguish the successful reader from the less successful reader.  I will be reviewing Willingham’s book at a later date.

 

FOOTNOTES:

[i] The Importance of Books,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 1949, 168

[ii] Ibid, 168

[iii] Ibid, 169

[iv] Ibid, 169

[v] Ibid, 169

[vi] Ibid, 170

[vii] Ibid, 170

[viii] Ibid, 173

[ix] Ibid, 173

[x] Ibid, 173

[xi] Ibid, 175

[xii] Ibid, 175-176

[xiii] Ibid, 176

[xiv] Ibid, 176-177

[xv] Ibid, 177-178

[xvi] Ibid, 178

[xvii] Ibid, 178