why is book reading much emphasized?

Bookish knowledge is not always helpful. Yet schools and other educational institutions insist on booking knowledge for the following reaons: Books being definitive objects in the sense - the copies of the same book contain the same information it is easy to standardize people's(pupils'} knowledge/learning. Books on the same subject authored by different people,and given the same amount of coverage can ascertain that all those who read the books can be considered and tested to have had about the same knowledge. Different books on the any one subject also present the same subject from slightly different viewpoints, and the collective knowledge could be greater than that gleaned from the individual books. Books can be read several times, till the subject is learnt, whereas any other form of learning depends on the grasping speed of a person. When someone shares his knowledge from memory there could be errors of transmission. But when the same is put into a book by an author s/he will take extra care to make it error free. To make errors the minimum in learning is essential because it easier to learn than to unlearn wrong knowledge. Books are the shortest way to accumulate the greatest amount of knowledge in the shortest time. Assume one were to learn every law of Physics by experimenting only. Think of the amount of money and time that need be spent. Certainly, the knowledge gained by experimental study or experiential learning is of a richer kind but a lot of time goes by, by the time something is learnt. One can go on for some more. But I would like to stop here to see if this is what you were looking for.

When I was in college one class I had to take was being taught by a teacher that had previously been a third grade teacher. She had a simplistic, and to those of us who considered ourselves adults, a demeaning way of teaching. One thing she stressed all through her class was to take notes and keep them. We didn't know why she was so adamant about this but some of us followed her direction on this. We were all surprised when it came time for our final exam and she told us we could use our books and any notes we had. Her reasoning was that, in her words, "It's not what you know, but if you know how to look it up." I have always maintained that if you can read well you can learn anything you need to know. This is why I think reading books is so important.

People who cannot read are easy to control and manipulate. They must rely on what they are told. They cannot do their own research. They cannot think for themselves. The mind is a muscle. Reading is a skill. Reading exercises the mind. Reading books develops theskill. It is much like listening and comprehending what you have heard. The written word is so powerful. This is why some governments oppose free and honest communication. Books are tutors, comforters, companions. Books open up a whole new world. With reading, the reader can be anyone, a prince, a mogul, a queen, a lover, an astronaut., a great chef; the reader can go anywhere in the world or out of it, go on safari, fight battles, find cures, find romance, dare to dream.

Perhaps books are the only way to learn the right way. It seems the knowledge we get from each other and from multimedia are very entertaining intensive but extremely disorganized. Though as of year 2009, there CBTs and other multimedia for teaching, books are still more practical from the point of view of (no) energy consumption and convenience... As always, the above may be obsolete by as early as now :)