Friends of the Libraries' Guest Columnist Features Reading provides a lifetime of gratification By Richard Vedder April 25, 2005 The Athens Messenger

Like many of the writers of this column, I love books and remember fondly the thousands of hours I have spent exploring the splendors of our world through reading.

Our civilization most efficiently transmits its accomplishments to the next generation through books, and being both the recipient and transmitter of ideas through reading has been immensely rewarding. Moreover, my experience has been that the most gripping and thrilling stories are best savored and experienced through the printed word. When my wife and I bought a new house a few years ago, we devoted perhaps the largest room to a beautiful library where I get immense satisfaction merely looking at the literally thousands of books we have read; a lifetime of enjoyment is literally before my eyes.

Yet reading is more than a fount of great enjoyment and satisfaction. It has a practical, pecuniary side to it as well. The evidence is clear: Well–read people earn more than less read ones — and the "literacy differential" is growing over time. This is a knowledge–based society, and reading (via books, newspapers, magazines, or the Internet) confers knowledge — which gives one economic power. In olden times, physical strength gave one an advantage in the world — today knowledge gained through reading is much more financially rewarding. I speak all over the country (and beyond), and often get nice compensation for doing so — certainly not because of my looks, or my athletic or even speaking ability, but because of whatever wisdom I allegedly impart from the books and articles I have read and written.

Have you ever gone to a high school reunion and been shocked at the change in the station in life of some of your classmates? Often the football star who was contemptuous of books but whom the girls idolized in high school is now struggling to make ends meet, while the dorks and nerds who were bookish and somewhat less popular are doctors and lawyers and successful businessmen. The source of the football star's greatest joy in high school — his athletic ability — has sharply declined over time, unlike for the voracious reader who learns and enjoys typically right up to the very end.

Reading then provides gratification, not only at the time it happens but later in life. The ultimate revenge of the nerds is that they end up running society and consuming a large proportion of resources. There is some justice in the world.

Richard Vedder is distinguished professor of economics at Ohio University. His latest book is "Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much."