Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions | Page 3

the shoulders. This happens sometimes in the school, but never in the world.
The last twenty-five years have produced two new features in our civilization, that are at once a cause and a product of learning. I speak of the Press, and of Associations for mutual improvement.
The newspaper press of America, having its centre in the city of New York, is more influential than the press of any other country. It may not be conducted with greater ability; though, if compared with the English press, the chief difference unfavorable to America is found in the character of the leading editorial articles. In enterprise, in telegraphic business, maritime, and political news and information, the press of the United States is not behind that of Great Britain.
It must, however, be admitted that a given subject is usually more thoroughly discussed in a single issue from the English press; but it is by no means certain that public questions are, upon the whole, better canvassed in England than in America. Indeed, the opposite is probably true. Our press will follow a subject day after day, with the aid of new thoughts and facts, until it is well understood by the reader. European ideas of journalism cannot be followed blindly by the press of America. The journalist in Europe writes for a select few. His readers are usually persons of leisure, if they have not always culture and taste; and the issue of the morning paper is to them what the appearance of the quarterly, heavy or racy, is to the cultivated American reader.
But the American journalist, whatever his taste may be, cannot afford to address himself to so small an audience. He writes literally for the million; for I take it to be no exaggeration to say that paragraphs and articles are often read by millions of people in America. This fact is an important one, as it furnishes a good test of the standard taste and learning of the people. Our press answers the demand which the people make upon it. The mass of newspaper readers are not, in a scholastic sense, well-educated persons. Newspaper writers do not, therefore, trouble themselves about the colleges with their professors, but they seek rather to gain the attention and secure the support of the great body of the people, who know nothing of colleges except through the newspapers. We have always been permitted to infer the intellectual and moral character of the audiences of Demosthenes, from the orations of Demosthenes; and may we not also infer the character of the American people, from the character of the press that they support? In a single issue may often be found an editorial article upon some question of present interest; a sermon, address, or speech, from a leading mind of the country or the world; letters from various quarters of the globe; extracts from established literary and scientific journals; original essays upon political, literary, scientific, and religious subjects; and items of local or general interest for all classes of readers. This product of the press, in quantity and quality, could not be distributed, week after week, and year after year, among an ignorant class of people. It could be accepted by intelligent, thinking, progressive minds only; and, as a fact necessarily co?xisting, we find the newspaper press equally essential to the best-educated persons among us. The newspaper press in America is a century and a half old; but its power does not antedate this century, and its growth has been chiefly within the last twenty-five years. What that growth has been may be easily seen by any one who will compare the daily sheet of the last generation with the daily sheet of this; and the future of the American press may be easily predicted by those who consider the progressive influences among us, of which the newspaper must always be the truest representative.
Within the same brief period of time it has become the fixed custom of the people to associate together for educational objects.
As a consequence, we have the lyceum for all, libraries for all, professional institutes and clubs for merchants, mechanics, and farmers, and, at last, free libraries and lectures for the operatives in the mills. Where these institutions can exist, there must be a high order of general learning; and where these institutions do exist, and are sustained, the learning of the people, whether high or low at any given moment, must be rapidly improved. Yet some of these agencies--lectures and libraries, for example--are not free from serious faults. It may seem rash and indefensible to criticize lectures upon the platform of the lecturer; but, as the audience can inflict whatever penalty they please upon the speaker, he will so far assume responsibility as to say that amusement is not the highest object of a