Reading's More Than A Pleasure

Reading's More Than A Pleasure

The pleasure to read, put off way too long, becomes like a drag on a boat, slowing it down while making it less manageable to steer, as it puts in jeopardy a person's desire to better find themselves. The inability to read is more like hitting an iceberg and sinking the boat rather than just putting a drag on it.

Where in the World could America get a better return on her investment then if our country would make education a top priority by pouring investments into it. It's not like a brand new program, we've had an universal education agenda in place for most of a Century here in America which now needs a shot of financing to make education truly a 21st Century accomplishment.

Americans pride ourselves in the excellence of our higher education institutions which serves those whose parents can afford their exorbitant costs or are youths willing to mortgage their future by borrowing to attend. Many slots are taken up by foreign students of financially able parents.

To more and more, a belief surfaces that a higher education is but a "right of passage" of all young inhabitants of our Earth as they pass from youthful adolescence into adulthood, and, as their aptitude and attitude allows them. This passage is evermore controlled by a young person's ability to be served by money instead of by raw mental ability.

Why in the World does America eat its seed corn or eat her children or eat the future away? Because, we as a country, are awfully short sighted thinking only for today or, at best, no longer than this week. The rich are really dumb thinking this way. Their own best interest is in having buyers of products their industries produce.

These buyers have to be nurtured, growing into consumers which is the backbone of America's economy. They need disposable income to purchase goods and services. Expanding the poor is the last thing providers of good and services need unless these providers are bent on a short time run. Too often, it seems the well to do need little time to make their vast wealth, so they're only in for the short run, and those younger financiers replace them in a same short amount of time.

It once took a generation to accumulate an old time fortune, but now, ten years is a long time for a fortune to be realized. Get mine now and be gone is the moneyed's song when their interest should be in a rising tides lift all ships.

A rising tide is needed in education to bring it along in a way that truly raises the pursuit of knowledge to a level our World needs. The ability to read is the golden rule for all living beings. The increased ability to write well boarders on the true per suit of capturing wisdom.

Ronald C. Downie