Anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable

I have just finished reading Diane Ravitch's The Language Police in which she chronicles the pernicious exercise of direct and indirect censorship of texts that are used in the education of our children, the censorship occurring from both social conservatives (trying to maintain traditions and standards) and social progressives (trying to advance new behaviors and habits of thought) and the censorship being exercised directly by text selection committees as well as indirectly by authors and publishers in anticipation of issues. Ravitch's contention, with which I empathize and suspect is correct but for which she does not provide empirical evidence, is that such skewing of text selection, and bowdlerizing of those texts that do get through, leads to exceptionally dull, uninformative, and misleading information. There is a shadow of an argument being made that such pablum as makes it into textbooks is contributative to declining academic scores and achievements.

The central contention, for both the social conservative and the social progressive, is that which was made made by Plato (or perhaps Socrates via Plato) in Book II of The Republic, and that is that for a young child, "anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable." The logical case is made admirably in the dialogue below. The question is, after 2,500 years, do we have any empirical evidence indicating the degree to which a child is indelibly marked by what they read? A better question might be "To what degree is a child's behavior and decision-making influenced, and in what manner, by the things to which they are exposed, in particular stories and books?"

I do believe that particular stories read by a particular child at a particular time under particular circumstances can have an indelible influence on that child and shape their future. But I do not believe we have a model that allows us to predict what will be the likely outcome on a child from reading which stories in what sequence at what age under which circumstances by what type of child.

Without such a predictive model, we are in the cognitive dark ages. How is a well intentioned parent to select what might be beneficial for their child's cognitive, intellectual, moral and behavorial development? Right now it appears to me that we have lots of discussion, opinions, and energy and virtually none of it based on anything even approaching an empirical base.

We are, with respect to reading, in much the same quandry as we are regarding technological progress. We have a strong sense that in the aggregate the scientific method and technological progress have been conducive to the improvement of human life. At the same time, we are extremely leery about the possible consequences of technological progress, regarding it at least as Janus-faced if not further as a two-edged sword. Dynamite has allowed the construction of buildings and railroads and highways which have sheltered and allowed the feeding of masses of people not otherwise easily fed or sheltered. But we also know that the chemistry of explosives has facilitated immense destruction.

So if we are to harvest the best outcomes from the habit of reading, we would be well advised to seek to find ways to empirically understand the mechanisms of the why, what, where, when, when, who and which of reading. Correspondingly, both social conservatives and social progressives ought to heed Seneca's counsel that

Some false things bear the semblance of truth. We should always allow some time to elapse, for time discloses the truth.

We need some good model regarding book and story selection for children and we seem, despite innumerable practitioners and gargantuan budgets, to have scarcely a clue.

The discussion in the Republic sets the precedent for this still unresolved issue. We all agree on the importance of reading but we don't really know how or why. Plato, Book II, The Republic.

You know also that the beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken.

Quite true.

And shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up?

We cannot.

Then the first thing will be to establish a censorship of the writers of fiction, and let the censors receive any tale of fiction which is good, and reject the bad; and we will desire mothers and nurses to tell their children the authorised ones only. Let them fashion the mind with such tales, even more fondly than they mould the body with their hands; but most of those which are now in use must be discarded.

Of what tales are you speaking? he said.

You may find a model of the lesser in the greater, I said; for they are necessarily of the same type, and there is the same spirit in both of them.

Very likely, he replied; but I do not as yet know what you would term the greater.

Those, I said, which are narrated by Homer and Hesiod, and the rest of the poets, who have ever been the great story-tellers of mankind.

But which stories do you mean, he said; and what fault do you find with them?

A fault which is most serious, I said; the fault of telling a lie, and, what is more, a bad lie.

But when is this fault committed?

Whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature of gods and heroes,—as when a painter paints a portrait not having the shadow of a likeness to the original.

Yes, he said, that sort of thing is certainly very blameable; but what are the stories which you mean?

First of all, I said, there was that greatest of all lies in high places, which the poet told about Uranus, and which was a bad lie too,—I mean what Hesiod says that Uranus did, and how Cronus retaliated on him. The doings of Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him, even if they were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and thoughtless persons; if possible, they had better be buried in silence. But if there is an absolute necessity for their mention, a chosen few might hear them in a mystery, and they should sacrifice not a common (Eleusinian) pig, but some huge and unprocurable victim; and then the number of the hearers will be very few indeed.

Why, yes, said he, those stories are extremely objectionable.

Yes, Adeimantus, they are stories not to be repeated in our State; the young man should not be told that in committing the worst of crimes he is far from doing anything outrageous; and that even if he chastises his father when he does wrong, in whatever manner, he will only be following the example of the first and greatest among the gods.

I entirely agree with you, he said; in my opinion those stories are quite unfit to be repeated.

Neither, if we mean our future guardians to regard the habit of quarrelling among themselves as of all things the basest, should any word be said to them of the wars in heaven, and of the plots and fightings of the gods against one another, for they are not true. No, we shall never mention the battles of the giants, or let them be embroidered on garments; and we shall be silent about the innumerable other quarrels of gods and heroes with their friends and relatives. If they would only believe us we would tell them that quarrelling is unholy, and that never up to this time has there been any quarrel between citizens; this is what old men and old women should begin by telling children; and when they grow up, the poets also should be told to compose for them in a similar spirit. But the narrative of Hephaestus binding Here his mother, or how on another occasion Zeus sent him flying for taking her part when she was being beaten, and all the battles of the gods in Homer—these tales must not be admitted into our State, whether they are supposed to have an allegorical meaning or not. For a young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal; anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable; and therefore it is most important that the tales which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts.