Teaching college kids is rewarding, but sometimes worrisome. Like freshmen I taught decades ago, my students are respectful, energetic, and, for older educators like me, rejuvenating. But one difference is troubling: Nowadays many students are not as well-rounded, as they would be if they spent more time reading.
With hopes of generating interest in reading, I post a list of book titles each semester — mostly classics, great works of literature I enjoyed reading. Students are instructed to select a book and, from it, choose a character for analysis in a composition. Specifically, they must explain why a virtue or flaw in his personality is the prime motivator of his actions throughout the book.
Some students enjoy the challenge; others complain. Some say the books I recommend won’t contribute to their course of study; some want to read books I consider inappropriate for anyone, young or old; some plainly admit they dislike reading any kind of book.
When I told one whining youngster that reading has contributed immeasurably to my knowledge of the world and its inhabitants, I fear he spoke for many of his peers when he said, “That may be true for people of your generation, but I prefer learning the modern way — by watching television and surfing the web.”
How thankful I am that my mother instilled in me the gift of reading at an early age. She encouraged me not only to read the classics, but also to read the biographies of notable figures. Reading about one famous person helped me win a coveted Boy Scout medal.
Several weeks before a Jamboree, our scoutmaster gave us a list of the events to be held. I chose the semaphore competition. To prepare myself, I read the biography of Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph. I learned that on May 24, 1844, he used a telegraph line approximately forty miles long to transmit successfully a biblical passage from the book of Numbers: “What hath God wrought?”
On the day of my event, my transcriber and I joined scouts representing several southern states. From a distant ridge, other scouts waved the semaphores, and as we figured out letters, the transcribers wrote them down. The first word — WHAT — was easy, but the second word whose fourth letter, H, followed the letters H-A-T, had us scrambling for a solution.
Then I remembered what I read in Morse’s biography and realized that we were competing telegraphically, but without wires.
Immediately, Morse’s famous message came to mind. When I told my assistant to write down the complete message, he wondered how I could possibly know the remaining letters before they were transmitted. “Just write them down,” I said. “The instant the last letter is sent, I’ll signal that we’ve got the message.”
As it has done all my life, reading prepared me well. I grasped the message; my competitors didn’t. It was the exact same message transmitted in 1844, and I knew it as soon as I recognized its first two words: “What hath…?”
Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.
This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.
Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
