Daily Times

The recent announcement of the higher education department Punjab to establish reading corners in the libraries of the college is a highly laudable and much-needed act and is being widely appreciated because Reading, the famous philosopher Bacon claims that “makes a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man”. The significance of reading any word is established by the fact that every word opens a new world for the reader to think or to ponder and even if one is not reading for a degree, one can enjoy reading books because Bacon again claims that “some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested”.

This suggests the types of reading and those of readers, meaning thereby that the reading is not simply done to pass an exam but also to enjoy and to get knowledge of new things and places. On the same grounds, it is always beneficial to read a book for any purpose because reading has an edge to make one a positively engaged individual. Books are just a one way of reading activity which can be of many types.

Reading by human beings has made it possible for them to excel in almost every field of life. Perhaps that is the reason that almost every religion and creed of the world inspired the followers to read and observe the world around them keenly to understand and use it for their aims and purposes. All revealed religions, especially have books to be read by their followers and that is why reading has been emphasized as much as other actions. Perhaps that is the cause that humans have included reading in the four basic skills to learn a language and one of them is reading skill. The more one reads the more one gets an advantage over the others. But unfortunately, in the name of new digital technology, we have started to depend more on audio and videos instead of reading and writing and this is diminishing the human mental capabilities to read, understand and write. Now human minds are less capable of analyzing, synthesizing and recycling information because of over-dependence on calculating machines.

Making reading corners in the libraries is not sufficient. Reading hours may be fixed and each student must submit a review of the book twice a semester to pass his semester.

Today, young people supposedly undermine reading books because perhaps they don’t know, that all the successful humans of the world have strong reading habits and are continuing with this as vigorously as ever.

The prominent examples are Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Similarly, all generals, great politicians, and great artists have the habit of being avid readers because they not only enjoy but also develop their minds to the level of perfection and deliver positive things to the world. All this goes to proves that reading is an activity to be continued by humanity, they must in no way hand over this job to computers or other machines.

The well-known language scientists claim that as soon as we read something, it makes space in our minds in the shape of alphabetical pictures which stay and match with the ever-new incoming pictures to make a mountain of human knowledge which is dependable and passable to the next coming generations.

The world is different now than the world 100 years ago only because people were reading and analyzing and synthesizing. Now we are gradually handing over this job to machines and so human capability to survive in the world around us is diminishing. Besides, the reading process brings tolerance and civilizing aspects in our lives which we lose and make a hating world around us because of the absence of reading.

This brings us to the point that we need to bring back the essentials of humanity to human beings by making reading essential and fruitful at least for our young people so that they may continue with the reading habits in their future years to come. For this reading should begin with the early years like the developed civilization, which makes it necessary for their young ones to read and review at least one book in one term. The same patterns should be followed in the college life of adult students. Making reading corners in the libraries is not sufficient. Reading hours may be fixed and each student must submit a review of the book twice a semester to pass his semester.

The reviews developed by the students must be properly evaluated to ensure no copycats. This can be a fruitful way of taking back humanity to what it is made for and to develop their IQ and the powers of mind to harness the world around them in a more practical and precise way without losing the equilibrium set by nature. At the end of the day, one can claim that reading makes us better humans if we can continue with this.

The writer is a professor of English at Government Emerson University, Multan. He can be reached at zeadogar@hotmail.com and Tweets at @Profzee