I have no hard data, but my impression is that the population of students who would be likely to read are the exact same population that are college bound and therefore mired in lots of A.P. classes, extracurricular activities, and lots of homework, which seriously cuts down on leisure time.
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That's all added since my time. I'm interested on hos you relate the cutting down on leisure time to this thread.
I've always said, only half facetiously, that over half of what Ilearned in grad school was in the Union cafeteria or Metzger's bar. But after all, that's what "scholar" originally meant: a man of leisure. On that point Whitman is nearer to the ancient Greeks than manmanclassical schoalres are. And it was Newman's point in talking about the 18th-c Oxbridge as well as Reisman's in talking about colleges that changed student's values.
Carol