LEISURE-TIME READING

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25092, 25 January 1947, Page 9

LEISURE-TIME READING

FAVOURITE AUTHORS SURVEY OF CHILDREN’S. PREFERENCES “The adolescent in the post-primary school is an avid and catholic consumer of the major forms of popular art. deeply responsive to the rather elementary appeal so much of it makes to him,” said Mr W. J. Scott (lecturer in English at the Teachers’ Training College. Wellington), in an address to post-primary school teachers who are now at Christchurch attending a refresher course in English. Mr Scott discussed an investigation which had been made into the out-of-school reading, film-going, and radio-listening habits of post-primary school boys and girls in New ,Zealand. “At the same time, some of the books that the teacher champions in the classroom, especially those of Dickens, Stevenson, Mark Twain Defoe. Charlotte Bronte, and Jane Austen still keep their hold on the pupil,” Mr Scott said. “It is probable, indeed, that the pupil reads more classics than the ordinarily educated adult whose reading tends to be almost entirely of contemporary books. Considering the persuasive and clamant nature of the novel, magazine, newspaper, film, and radio item of the moment, it is likely that the teacher of literature can claim some credit for the fairly large amount of good reading that his pupils do out of school. Though the problem of developing in them a taste for the good that will give lasting satisfaction is too large to be solved by him alone, he can go ahead confidently with the steps that lie within his province—better stocked libraries, more reading aloud of good books of fiction and non-fiction, greater use of discussion methods, more determined training in how to read (What is said? How it is said? What is it worth?) —and, generaUy, a more thorough-going playing of his essential role as an interpreter of the best that has been thought and said.

“Some of you will know A. J. Jenkinson’s ‘What do boys and girls read?’, published in 1940, the first comprehensive survey of the reading tastes of English boys and girls of 11-15 years,” the lecturer said. “It was ‘based on the answers to a questionnaire given to 3000 boys and girls in senior schools and the junior forms of secondary schools. The basis of my investigation was a questionnaire modelled on Jenkinson's, but with additional questions dealing with the cinema and the radio. Just on 4000 boys and girls, representing a crosssection. of the whole post-primary population in New Zealand State schools, answered it.

“The first question asked them to record the books they had voluntarily read, re-read, and started but failed to finish in the past month. The 4000 pupils recorded over 20,000 readings of some 7000 books, an average of slightly more than five for each pupil. •Die girls’ average was half a book higher than the boys’. Of the 20,000 readings about nine out of 10 were of fiction. Only about 2000 readings of books of non-fiction were entered. Most Popular Books

“The 15 most popular books in order of popularity were:—Boys.—‘Treasure Island.’ ‘Coral Island,’ ‘Tom Brown’s Schooldays;’ ‘Tom Sawyer,’ ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ ‘Sherlock Holmes,’ ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel,’ ‘The Count of Monte Cristo.’ ‘The Pickwick Papers,’ ‘Beau Geste.’ ‘Huckleberry Finn.’ ‘Fighter Squadrons.’ ‘The Gorilla Hunters,’. ‘A Tale of Two Cities,’ and ‘David Copperfield.’ Girls.—‘Little Women,’ ‘Anne of Green Gables,’ ‘Good Wives,’ ‘David Copperfield,’ ‘Treasure Island,’ ‘Jane Eyre,’ ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ ‘Pollyanna,’ ‘Anne of Avonlea,’ ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel.’ “Anne of the Island/ ‘Seven Little Australians,’ ‘Anne, ot Ingleside.’ Tom Sawyer,’ and ‘Lorna Doone.’

“Of the modern authors of some merit. Kipling. Wodehouse, and Wells 'mainly scientific) were fairly widely read, but no others. There were 3 few dozen readers of Gibbs. Cronin, and Margaret Mitchell, a few readers of Galsworthy, Bennett, and F. B. Young; no (or very few) readers of Lawrence, Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Huxley, Maugham. and Forster. The serious realistic fiction that has claimed the attention of the educated adult in the last generation, and in this, was either unknown to the boys and girls or not liked by them.

“Marked differences between the tastes of the boys and the girls were revealed in the answers. The girls not only read more than the boys; but also reread more; they read large numbers of books for boys, who read scarcely any books for girls C42.per cent, of the readers of ‘Stalky and Co.,’ for instance. were girls, compared with 5 per cent, of readers of L. M. Montgomery’s books who were boys); they liked humorous stories and thrillers less than the boys, and stories of romance and domestic stories much more.”

The investigation also showed that more than 90 per cent, of the 4000 pupils questioned had “read” a daily newspaper the night or the morning before, the speaker said. About 60 per cent, estimated that they had spent more than 10 minutes and 30 per cent, more than 20 minutes reading it. Sex differences, were also apparent. Twice as many boys as girls looked at the world news first: four times as many girls as boys looked at the notices of births, deaths, and marriages and at the advertisements. The necessary training in how to read a newspaper should include: (a) a history of the development of the modern press; (b) a study of its language and methods; <c) exercises in comparative criticism to teach pupils to separate fact from opinion. Poetry and Drama Two questions concerned the reading ©f poetry and drama out of school. The girls did more of both than the boys, though little of either was done even bx them. The poetry read by both sqpfes of the kind standard in school anthologies—“ Charge of the Light Brigade.” “Ancient Mariner,” “Gunga Din,” “Hiawatha,” “Highwayman,” “Sea Fever,” “Lady of Shalott,” and “Daffodils.” In the boys’ list of more popular poems the “Man from Snowy River” appeared, and in the girls’ the “White Cliffs of Dover.” The most widely read poets were Tennyson, Kipling, Longfellow, Coleridge, Browning, and Masefield., Poetry was obviously unpopular, the result in part of the competition from more easily assimilable and exciting forms of emotional art, in part probably of poor teaching.

The final question asked was: “If you had more leisure to which of your leisure activities would you most like to give it?” The great majority of both sexes voted for sports and games of different kinds (more boys than girls). Next in order came hobbies (more boys), then reading (more girls), then seeing films (more girls), then listening to or playing music (more girls). The sports most popular were the more informal ones, in which the two sexes can take part together—tramping, cycling, swimming, camping, boating, riding. Two of the big team games—cricket and football—appeared fairly high on the boys’ list, but none of the usual team games was °n the girls’ list.