“Do you ask me what you should regard as especially to be avoided? I say, crowds.”
Being the introvert I am, this answer from Seneca (letter 7) received from me a warm welcome and strong affirmation. However, I quickly learned that his reasoning was not formed from a fear of crowds or a feeling of discomfort one might experience in a room full of people. Instead, Seneca issued his warning against the crowd for the harm it imposes upon one’s soul.
Probatos itaque semper lege, et si quando ad alios deverti libuerit, ad priores redi.
One should always read sound literature, Seneca advises, and when one begins feeling the urge to pass on to new reading material, return to the books or authors already read.
Ex iis quae mihi scribis et ex iis quae audio bonam spem de te concipio: non discurris nec locorum mutationibus inquietaris. Aegri animi ista iactatio est: primum argumentum compositae mentis existimo posse consistere et secum morari.
This is the opening of Seneca’s second letter to Lucilius, and it moves quickly to an argument for the selective reading of a few books over a less attentive gloss of several authors.
How ought reading be taught? Notice that the question asks “how ought” not “how can”. The question bears a subsequent inquiry: what should my students read? One technique I have grown increasing aware of is children sitting in small groups reading little paperback pamphlets about animals, the seasons, plants, and daily life bearing lots of pictures and few words. Another characteristic of these pamphlets is that they are “graded”. That is, they are leveled from easy to hard by use of a number or alphabetic code.
During the past decade or so, educational policy and practice appear to have focused more and more upon developing the worker at the expense of developing the citizen. Charles N. Quigley
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