Read some chilling statistics, reported in an accurate Roper Organization survey a short time ago. Pollsters telephoned a nationally representative cross section of 1,000 families with kids from three to fourteen years old. Over ninety percent of moms and dads said reading was essential to their boy or girl's success. But of those with a child who could read, only 66 percent were happy with how their youngster was reading. According to age group, these are the numbers regarding parents who thought their child was interested in reading: . . .SCHOOL LEVEL PERCENTAGE Preschool 56% Kindergarten-second grade 59% Third grade-fifth grade 53% Beyond fifth grade 39%. . . At best, therefore, according to parents, six out of ten youngsters in any of the four groups found books stimulating. Of all the families surveyed only forty-four percent said their children read for pleasure each day. The implications are astounding. Personal happiness, future education, good jobs, enlightened citizenry, the society's continued advance: these all are at stake. Looking beyond the elementary and junior high school years, a Carnegie Foundation survey of 5500 college professors revealed that 75% think undergraduates at their institutions are seriously underprepared in basic skills; 66% think their colleges are paying too much money and spending too much time teaching what students should have learned prior to college admission. The failure of our schools to develop essential skills, the pervasive indifference to books among our children, the minimal achievement level at which so many youngsters hover throughout their educational lives—these are grim barriers to knowledge, happiness, and success. We read about this new study, that commission's report, those irrefutable data. We worry for awhile and then shrug with resignation. I'm not hopeful that the depressing statistics we hear about so regularly will improve any time soon, no matter what changes we make in our country's formal educational system. But in the informal realm;—the home, the supermarket, the playground, the various child-parent intersections—fertile, untilled soil stretches out around us.