of the press as the experience of our own nation has disclosed them.

§ 4. The most obvious and the most valuable purpose subserved by the press is the diffusion of intelligence. The business and working classes rely chiefly on the press for their intellectual food, and though it is often not of the best, it is in the great majority of cases much better than none. The gains of education, and the motives to education, would be much less than they now are were it not for the press. The press gives constant occasion for the use and extension of the knowledge one has, especially when that knowledge is comparatively limited. The periodicals which aim at a careful presentation of the current facts in mechanics, business, and popular science, are wholly good, and even a great daily cannot fail to give much valuable information. The material for intellectual activity is surpassingly abundant, chiefly by means of the press.

It also discloses the facts, evil and good, with which the community has to deal. While this disclosure may frequently lead to mischief, the balance of influence is, in most communities, on the side of virtue. Knowledge, even though it includes the evil with the good, is not indifferent to social purity and strength. We could in no way more profoundly impugn moral forces than by the assertion that the complete record of the world does not sustain them. A knowledge of evil begets evil chiefly because it is partial, garbled, and comes as an appeal to that which is already evil. Let the facts of life be given profoundly, widely, truly, and the law of virtue is in them one and all.

"I think that in England we scarcely acknowledge to ourselves how much we owe to the wise and watchful press, which presides over the formation of our opinions, and which brings about the splendid result - namely, that in matters of belief the humblest of us are lifted to the level of the most sagacious, so that really a simple Cornet of the Blues is no more likely to entertain a foolish belief about ghosts or witchcraft or any other supernatural topic, than the Lord High Chancellor, or the Leader of the House of Commons." 1

Reformatory work must be called out and sustained by a thorough mastery of the facts involved in it. " Of all the instruments which human wisdom has devised, a free press is most efficacious in putting an end to jobs, abuses, political malversation and corruption." 2 The revelations of the press, like the uncovering of the world by daylight, often scatters the evils which have gathered in darkness. The affiliation of light and truth is fundamental. The pertinacity with which the Times pursued the corruptions of the Tweed administration in New York City, and finally succeeded in bringing retribution, is an example of the power of exposure. Exposure gives occasion to correction. It is the moral force of the community which determines what the result shall be. If knowledge enhances vice, it is because vice is already predominant.

The press gives great extension to our communal life. It offers a kind of social intercourse, by no means the best, but better than isolation. In spite of all the misapprehensions and dislikes occasioned between classes by the press, they have more knowledge of each other,

1"Eothen," A. W. Kinglake, p. 130.

2"History of England in the Eighteenth Century," W. E. H. Lecky, vol. iii. pp. 257, 262.

and understand more justly than they otherwise would their common dependencies and interests. Speech remains the medium of thought, though much is spoken foolishly. This increased knowledge is a gain for the moment and a gain ultimately. Wider information, more general interest, constitute one of the conditions of race-life. We accept the defective form of earlier methods because, by elimination and correction, we reach later ones. It does not do to repress the very terms of improvement because these terms are necessarily defective.

Progress, though not certainly secured by the press, is, when once initiated, made far more rapid by its means. The discussion of the principles and measures involved in it is taken up on all sides. Attack and defence, presentation and rejoinder, ruling principles and qualifying circumstances, follow instantly on each other, and a few weeks do the work of years and that not in

the minds of a few persons, but in an entire community. A movement of this kind may be precipitated. Theory may outstrip practice. Relations may be established as yet unsustained by conventional sentiment; but these are difficulties which we must look to progress itself to correct. The entire movement is broadened and deepened by the press. The press stands for the awakened, active, universal intellect; and its conclusions slowly gather correctness and decision. Diversity and vigor, error and truth, in thought are the inevitable concomitants of growth. It is not the desirable features in any given movement that adequately characterize it, but its ultimate relation to progress. Instruction and correction in the popular mind may often be slow and disa

greeable processes, but they are the only telling ones. The fastidious thinker withdraws from discussion because it is so rude, crass, and unserviceable, but his feeling arises because he is making his measurements in his own domain and not in the universal domain. The chief excellency of any event is that it offers wide discipline.

§ 5. With these great gains are united correspondingly great and disagreeable liabilities. These evils are incident to certain phases of social development, and, for the time being, subsidize the press as their most ready instrument.

The first and milder of these evils is that the love of news, as news simply, is awakened by the newspaper. News is mistaken for knowledge, gossip for information, criticism for correction, the scenic effects of public life for public life itself. The morning paper becomes ephemeral. A single day or hour robs. it of value. It is as transient in its office as the cup of coffee to which it leads the way. The movements of men's minds become rapid, superficial, and meaningless. This is a radical, and oftentimes an unobserved, mischief, and one that gives occasion to the more obvious evils which follow it. The mind, made trifling, puts no adequate estimate on serious facts. The firm and stately growth of the thoughts being arrested, the ground is overspread with weak but prolific sprouts.

Closely united with this result is a second like unto it. A love of sensation is awakened. Feelings become sensuous. Men fall into the vulgarity of having nothing else to do than to tell or to hear some new

thing. This general intellectual laxness is wholly consistent with intense business activity. Indeed it easily consorts with it as making the least claims for additional independent thought. Thus the life of the citizen expresses the intensively active, yet superficial, character of the community. Proportion is lost between the parts of life, and sound judgment disappears as to the intrinsic value of events. Men are made dizzy by each eddy of the stream, and are unable to determine its direction. Notoriety is mistaken for honor, and even the criminal finds an incentive to the crime in the momentary attention it commands.

Out of this love of sensation comes at once carelessness in reference to the truth. If the truth does not furnish the needed excitement, and in most cases it does not, it is exaggerated, perverted, falsified, till the required appeal to the public interest is secured. A lying spirit is abroad in the newspaper world. Great dailies pay large salaries to those who have most skill in the coloring of commonplace facts and the fabrication of new ones. "A swarm of young men is being trained up all over the country to consider prying and lying and distorting creditable professional pursuits, if any fun can be gotten out of them.”1 66 Managers are very apt to stand by, to the last extreme, a liar whose lies feed the popular appetite for amusement. This is not a pleasant thing to say about one's profession, but it is as true as gospel. As a matter of fact some of the most highly paid newspaper men are notorious liars, perverters, and inventors." 2 "As indifferent to the goal whither his pen conducts

1 The Nation, March 22, 1894.

2 Ibid, Nov. 4, 1886.