The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-10-26 00:00:00

THE VALUE OF THE NEWSPAPER.

Everything considered, the newspaper is the best
and most available of libraries. The one fact of cheap-
ness is so strongly in its favour as to overbalance the
majority of arguments that can be advanced upon the
opposite side. It is within the reach of everyone no
matter how poor, and finds an entrance where books
(as a rule) never can; it comes weekly, and is read and
loaned until actually worn out; can be caught up if
one has but a moment of time, some knowledge can be
gained, and laid down again without detriment to the
sense. A single, brief item frequently gives what
passages of book-bound matter would have to be
waded through to learn; for the newspaper is the
epitome of the entire world. In the briefest pos-
sible space all that is necessary to the correct under-
standing of the subject is given—to such perfec-
tion has the art of condensation been brought.
The newspapers, with the present facilities for almost
instantly learning what is transpiring in every portion
of the nabitaWe globe, h the reflection of the hour
equally as much as of past ages. By it the north and the
south, the east and the west are brought together. We
know of the crashing of the ice and the curling heat of
tne sun ; we are with the daring explorist seeking for
the North Pole; travel through the jungles of Africa;
have a bird's-eye view of great battles; sail over every
sea; dive with the whale to its fabulous depths • are
present with the parliament of nations; listen to the
la3t words of an expiring pope and take by the hand
his successor. A wonderful, concise, most skilfull
painted panorama of the affairs of the world is a news-
paper; a map of its busy life; a faithful reproduction
of all its lights and shadows and at the most nominal
cost; at. the merest bagatelle to books, even in these
days of exceptional cheapnesq. Week after week the
paper comes filled with all that is rare, new, interest-
ing, and instruotive. It ii a history of nations in
fifty-two volumes; an ever continued encyclopmdia of
tisrade, science, biography, agriculture, and the arts;
the "boiling down " of all books into so minute
a form that the mind can grasp at a sing le glance,
and be saved the wadingthrough a
aderous volumes
of uninteresting detail to the at ring of time
It is, in fact, the grandest of all saving
circulating
t'n libraries,
at only a penny fee; the throwing lrocuPen to the public
of all the costly archives of the world. The newspaper
of to-day is a perfect
cm,niunt gatherum. Nothing
escapes its notice. Every event of importance is
instantly
.photographed upon its pages. The whispers
breathed in every clime are caught and fixed. It is a
marvel of intelligence ; is the stereotype of every mind.
We look back in wonder at the days when it was not,
and human intelligence shudders to think of the bar-
barism and ignorance, and superstition that would fol-
low the blotting out of this the sun of the solar system.
Not a single word would we say against books.
lima as ansek al ; thus can never be tee

many; the world can never have too much of light;
but as the grandest, and cheapest, and widest circula-
tion medium of intelligence--as libraries for mankind,
they never can compare with newspapers.—Albany
Sunday Press.