Recreational Reading of Graduate Students

Abstract

C OLLEGE educators are used to encountering in the periodical press lengthy indictments of their efforts. Among the charges often leveled against higher education in general is the failure to inculcate any desire for continued reading after the four years on the campus; it is claimed that the average college graduate is not particularly interested in books, is not well-read, and makes no effort to remedy his deficiencies in this respect. Certainly college executives and librarians generally have never denied the obligation to foster reading independent of course requirements. If they have done little to infuse this ideal with reality, it is because library budgets usually are not sufficiently extensive or elastic to permit it. There are, however, numerous institutions where efforts consciously have been made to provide facilities and opportunities for reading beyond what students ordinarily might be expected to do. Yale has long had its Linonian and Brothers Library; Harvard has its Farnsworth Room; while Dartmouth, Hamilton, Minnesota, and many others maintain special rooms and collections for leisure reading. In addition to these, a recent and i eresting experiment in stimulating stud nts' reading has been undertaken on the campus of the University of Chicago. In September, I932, the International House, third of its kind in the United States, was opened to students of higher education in the Chicago area. In selecting residents the emphasis was definitely placed on graduate students, and naturally enough, the highest proportion consisted of students at the University of Chicago. Among the facilities provided for the residents was a library liberally provided with newspapers, periodicals, and books.' From the beginning there was no question of the important place the library would occupy in the life of the residents. In spite of the heavy demands of graduate courses, in spite of an almost constant round of social and recreational activities, the library at once became the focus of the intellectual atmosphere of the House. At hardly any time is the room