NEWSPAPERS AND THEIR VALUE
THE editor keeps the world’s day book; the historian keeps the ledger. A European traveler describes the United States as “a country where every man has a newspaper in his pocket.” This is a very correct national characteristic, and a distinctive one from what any other nation could apply to itself. Every man in this country has not only a newspaper in his pocket, but what is better, every man knows how to read and understand it. Newspapers have been so cheap in the United States that every individual could afford to take one, and he has been so long doing this that his daily journal has become as indispensable to him as his daily food. In fact he could do much better without some article of daily consumption on his table than to do without the daily food for his mind which a newspaper supplies, and which keeps the humblest man as well posted as his more wealthy neighbor in all matters affecting his political, social and moral good. It is the general diffusion of intelligence among the people through newspapers—that kind of intelligence which is the most practical and the most useful, because appertaining to all the movements of society, of which he is a living and breathing member—that gives such activity and earnestness to American life, and makes every individual nature self-dependent and thoroughly conscious of his manhood.
It is a great mistake, to female education, to keep a young lady’s time and attention devoted to the fashionable literature of the day. If you would qualify her for conversation you must give her something to talk about—give her education with this actual world and its transpiring events. Urge her to read the newspapers and become familiar with the present character and improvement of our race. History is of some importance; but the past world is dead and we have nothing to do with it. Our thoughts and our concerns should be for the present world, to know what it is and improve the condition of it. Let her have an intelligent opinion, and be able to sustain an intelligent conversation, concerning the mental, moral, political and religious improvement of our times. Let the gilded annals and poems of the center-table be kept part of the time covered with weekly and daily journals. Let the whole family—men, women and children— read the newspapers.
How lonesome the fireside where there is no paper! Ask the man who has a family paper to read with the latest news, the good stories, the useful lessons, with the witty sayings of the newspaper—ask him its value. Let him be deprived of it for a few weeks, and ask him to put an estimate on it.
Says the Educational Monthly: It is possible that we overrate the influence of the newspaper as an educator, but we think not. It is the voice of the living world. It is history, art, philosophy, science, truth, justice, rhetoric, grammar, and everything else—not unmixed with falsehood and nonsense, but not more so mixed than the home infant school for girls, from which boys break away before their bones are out of gristle. Take grammar, natural history, rhetoric and composition. Where are these so well taught as in the carefully edited newspaper? What better lesson in rhetoric than to see some popular writer or famous scholar roasted alive on the hot coals of criticism? Where are better examples of tasteful composition? Where is a better cabinet of natural history? What in all the world escapes the news paper editor? And if he commits blunders in grammar, or logic, or fact, or philosophy, is he not forthwith served up on a gridiron by another editor? Where, but in a newspaper, will be found a running history of all the literature of the day? Where else are you told what books you may safely buy, what are not worth putting on your shelves, and what would be as hurtful to the minds of your children as henbane to their bodies.