Our reading habits have declined drastically. Forty years ago a writer could expect the average reader to comprehend the classics; now many readers cannot even comprehend a popular, clear writer like C.S. Lewis. In twenty-nine years of college teaching, I have seen reading ability go steadily down. A paper I would give a "C" to today, I would have given an "F" to twenty-five years ago.
Why? Because you need inner and outer silence to read well. Silence is the atmosphere words breathe. Not only is silence hard to find, but people don't even want it anymore. They actually prefer to read to background music, deadening the silent part of the mind that alone can penetrate more deeply than the words.
Peter Kreeft (1938- )
