I wish I had written this piece - 'On Reading'

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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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I wish I had written this piece - 'On Reading'

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

This piece by 'Horatio Speaks' is so well-written, so moving, and so important, that I wish I had written it:

https://horatiospeaks.wordpress.com/201 ... 80#respond
...Nearly two centuries ago, a group of reform-minded individuals set out to transform the lives of people on the margins of Britain. They reported on their work in a book called Moral Statistics of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (1826), and this is what they said about their motivation in the introduction to that work:

The mere art of reading, ought not, perhaps, in strictness, to be held as education; yet the power which this art confers, of applying to our own use the wisdom and knowledge of every age . . . . renders it alone the most effective instrument of moral improvement. Whether or not instruction in this art should be made universal is, we believe, no longer in debate. . . . Our arts and institutions, our noblest distinctions, and most refined enjoyments – all are the gifts of education, without which, we descend almost to the level of “the beasts that perish”...
Please do find the time to read the whole piece and the readers' comments.
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