Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Measurement of Silent Reading French military authorities who tested the reading ability of recruits entering the Army in one year under the compulsory military service system. The results secured were closely similar to those found in the recent work among American soldiers. It was reported that many thousands of the young French men, who had attended the elementary schools dur ing the compulsory attendance period, were not able, upon reaching the age of 20, to use their reading abil ity as an ordinary, everyday tool. Like our own soldiers, they would be counted by the census as literates; but their literacy was of such low grade as to be of little help for ordinary reading purposes. In the United States, reading has long been recog nized as the first important subject for a child to learn. It is in fact the most important school subject that he ever will learn; for the ability to read Opens the doors to all other fields of human knowledge. It makes possible communication with others at a distance. It makes available the results of other people's experience, and the conclusions of their thinking. The modern interest in education is casting out Old subjects from the curriculum, and introducing new subjects to take their places; but with all the changes, made and contemplated, reading maintains its supremacy as the most important single subject the child can learn. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.