The leaders of Greenville's arts organizations recently hosted a provocative presentation at Furman by Dana Gioia, the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Gioia, a prominent poet, literary and music critic, and former business executive, was appointed by President Bush in 2003 to head the federal agency responsible for dispensing over $100 million a year to local arts organizations across the country. At the end of his presentation, Gioia announced to the Greenville audience that the NEA has awarded the Warehouse Theatre a substantial grant to support its efforts to promote Shakespeare in the public schools.

That was the good news. The bad news that Gioia shared came in the form of a sobering report commissioned by the NEA titled "Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America."

The report derives from a Census Bureau survey of 17,000 American adults representing all age groups, races, income and education levels. Its findings document an accelerating decline in literary reading across the country. Fewer and fewer people are reading novels, poems or plays. Instead they are watching TV or playing video games or surfing the Internet. Electronic entertainment has trumped the traditional pleasures of reading literary works of art.

In 2002, only 47 percent of Americans read a literary book; in 1992, 54 percent had. The declines occurred in almost every demographic cross section: men, women, whites, African Americans and Hispanics. The greatest drop in literary reading, however, is occurring among young adults aged 18-24. They are losing interest in literature faster than any other age group. In terms of geographic regions, the lowest levels of literary reading were found in the South.

Such news is not itself surprising. Electronic forms of entertainment surround and seduce us. To be sure, televisions, radios and computers provide information and cultural programming, but, as Gioia argues, reading a serious book "requires a degree of active attention and engagement" that the various forms of infotainment lack. "To lose such intellectual capability  and the many sorts of human continuity it allows," Gioia warns, "would constitute a vast cultural impoverishment."

But much more is at stake. The Census Bureau survey reveals that the people who do continue to read works of literature are more involved in the civic life of their communities than those who don't. More than 43 percent of literary readers perform volunteer and charity work as against 17 percent of non-readers. Engaged readers make for engaged citizens. The decline in active readers mirrors a similar decline in levels of community involvement, charitable giving, and voting participation.

Reading works of fiction, poetry and drama has many benefits, but perhaps the most important contribution it can make for our increasingly contentious age is to help us understand how others might see the world differently. The sauntering poet Henry David Thoreau once asked, "Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?" Perhaps more than any other form of expression, works of literature enable that miracle to occur.

"It is not natural for our minds to be open to what is other," author Carol Bly points out: "we have to cultivate it." Literature nurtures that ability to identify with other points of view and quite different life experiences. Books have the capacity to liberate us from the conceit of self-centeredness. They can excite greater compassion and empathy, which in turn foster greater justice and kindness.

What can be done? I am not optimistic that the disturbing trends summarized by Dana Gioia can be reversed. But we must try to restore the allure of serious literature. Like so many redeeming activities, a love for reading needs to be instilled early in young people. Parents must assume primary responsibility for helping their children develop a passion for books.

For all of the attention focused on the quality of schools and of teachers, the best education begins at home. So tonight turn off the TV, love your children  and read to them.