College Aids Reading

Dartmouth College has much influence upon the taste of its students in years after graduation, and has increased their interest in reading to a considerable degree, according to a survey covering 30 college years made by the Committee on Reading of the New England Association of Teachers of English. In comparisons made with Smith College and.an important city high school (the Hartford, Conn. Public High School), the Dartmouth figures seem to show that the College had more effect in this way than did the other two. Of the men who have influenced Dartmouth men most, the late Professor Charles F. Richardson has been given first place during the period covered by the survey. Other men, lec turers, who created interest at Dartmouth, were Professor Phelps of Yale, and QuillerCouch the novelist.

Dartmouth classes to which questionnaires were sent, were chosen as representative of given periods. They included 1900, 1906, 1911, 1920, 1926, and 1930. Replies were received from 271 members of these classes, which was the same number as those received from similar classes at Smith. The first question dealing with time spent in reading showed that Smith grads spent two hours and twenty minutes a day in reading, of which 71 per cent was pleasure reading. Dartmouth spent two hours and fifty minutes a day, yet only half of this time was spent in pleasure reading. In the matter of types of books preferred, Smith led Dartmouth in fiction preferences, 193 to 160, but it is interesting to note that in essays Dartmouth had 47 preferences and Smith 22. None of the Smith alumnae listed sports, current events, politics or law, all of which appeared in the Dartmouth preferences.

Among many other comparisons covered in the report, was that of favorite authors. Galsworthy was in first place, not only at Smith and Dartmouth but at the high school also. Willa Cather was in second place on the Smith list, Sinclair Lewis on the Dartmouth list. Third on the Smith list was Walpole, on the Dartmouth list, Conrad. Kipling appears among the favorite authors on the Smith list, but does not appear on the Dartmouth list at all, while at Dartmouth Hervey Allen, Van Dine, Farnol, Priestly and Rolland are chosen and do not find a place on the Smith list.