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Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house.
- Henry Ward Beecher
I don't know if I'm a materialist or not. I acquire lots of stuff, but I also get rid of lots of stuff. I routinely go through my closet and find clothes to put in Goodwill boxes around town, and I regularly purge my pantry of canned goods for local food drives. I take dishes and glasses to the Salvation Army. I have trashed a number of television sets, countless computers, and on two occasions automobiles. I do not keep leftovers in my refrigerator or reprints in my file cabinets. I acquire knick-knacks, and I soon disacquire them. I even get rid of my money, and I don't mean in bad investments. My friends, family members, and various nonprofit organizations would say that I am generous, but the truth is that as much as I like acquiring money, keeping it is not all that important to me.
But I never get rid of books, including books that I don't like, books that I'll never read again, and books that I'll never read at all. Books are different than other things, at least for me. I never get rid of them. I loan books to others, but I get them back!
I rack them. I stack them. I pack them. I have placed books not only next to my bed but also in it. There are books in the backseat of my car, and there are books in its trunk. On occasion, I've stored books in my refrigerator (don't ask). I haven't put them in my oven yet, but now that I think of it, that might happen, too. If there were ever a special episode of the A&E television show Hoarders devoted to books, I would be the star.
It was therefore with interest that I read a recent study showing rather conclusively that books matter (Evans, Kelley, Sikora, & Treiman, 2010). Mightily.
Researchers assembled survey data from nationally-representative samples from 27 different countries and looked at the eventual educational attainment of children who grew up in a home with "many" books (500 or more) versus few books. Across the 70,000 research participants, children growing up in homes with many books stayed in school three years longer than children from largely bookless homes. This finding was independent of parental education, occupation, and social class. The finding occurred in rich nations and poor nations. This finding occurred under communism and capitalism, in North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.
Further research may not be needed, at least not if we want to know the empirical link between the presence of books and subsequent educational attainment of children.
Are books markers of a scholarly culture within a family (as the researchers suggested) or direct causes of educational attainment? Probably both. Books provide context, Unlike a cause in the Baconian sense, context is not a discrete event but rather an ongoing influence on what we value and what we do, Context lingers. It not only causes but maintains and sustains.
One of the oft-repeated stories about the Peterson family is that we grew up without much extra money for fancy clothes, vacations, a second car, or an air conditioner. But there was always money for books. And while we never visited the East Coast, the West Coast, or Europe, we visited the local library every week.
I grew up in the 1950s, and I have a twin brother. Our mother was exhausted by the demands of child-rearing times two, in an era without Pampers or daycare. So she coped by plunking my brother and me down next to her in a chair, and she read to us, hour after hour, from the endless supply of books in our otherwise modest home.
Thanks Mom. I'm still at school!
Reference
Evans, M. D. R., Kelley, J., Sikora, J., & Treiman, D. H. (2010). Family scholarly culture and educational success: Books and schooling in 27 nations. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 28, 171-197.
