Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1857-05-14
NEWSPAPERS AND EDUCATION.


NEWSPAPERS AND EDUCATION.
The Importance of newspapers as source OF
information and of innocent amusement, cannot
be overestimated. 1t is dark home where there
is no paper filled with the news of the week, the
happy "hits" of the favorite Yorick, and the last
glad lyric from the heart of the bard. 1t does
not deserve to be called home-it is more prop
erly a prison.house for the soul-in which 1t
gropes in ignorance and prejudice, while the mere
physical, brutish enjoyments Of life, the ''morn-
ing dram" and the ''bacon and beans" is the high
est good to which its occupants ever aspire
man feels that he is in darkened and corrupted
atmosphere, whenever he passes threshold and
sees no paper or magazine difusing intelligence
and good humor around the ingle-side. He will
probably find bevy of bright-haired, rosy-cheek-
ed girls or lusty boys grouped around the hearth,
but his romantic admiration Of the former, will
soon be dispeed by ill-bred snickcring and stupid
ignorance, and the hopeful appearance of the lat
ter by the litteness of their views the obscurity
of their conversation, and the general boorishness
of their manners. The very fact that man, for
the sake of four or five dollars, will deprive him
self and family of the pleasure of reading, weekly,
two or three good papers, is strong presumptve
evidence of abject ignorance and all its attendant
vices and concomitant evils. Such man, nine
cases out of ten, it will not do to trust, for if he
has quas.honesty, it is m accidental virtue, not
founded on reason and liable at any moment to be
swayed by interest or warped by coming in con-
fict with some favorite vice. 1t will not do for
any man in this plentiful land, to say that he can
not afford to take at least one paper, unless he
wishes to be esteemed fool or a liar. 1t is the
best economy, for one paper can do as much to-
wards educating, managing, and making happy a
family, as three illnatured pedagogues, one min
lister of the Gospel, four cowhides, five scolding
belldams and half q dozen pragmatical fogyish
"daddes." Those who have once taken paper
can appreciate these truths, and it is seldom that
after subscribing for one year to paper that any
one can be brought to deprive himself of the
pleasant company of this agreeable and regular
visitor And no man who sees the good effect
that it is exerting, or calculated to exert on his
family, will ever think of excluding them from
such precious benefits. If the parent wishes to
give his family an education, he can find no better
stimulus to the attainment of that object, than
paper. 1t will be the first thing that elicits the
curiosity and leads the mind out from its thraldom,
to wander amid the vernal flowers and perennial
verGure of the fields of intelligence. Some anec-
dote, some story, some essay, or some poem, will
strike the youthful mind and lead its possessor on
to farther inquiries, and years after, when fame
and honor surrounds his name, the primum mobile
to all his greatness is forgotten, and mother,
father, or alma mater reaps the honor due to the
obscure newspaper that first awakened the slum-
bering genius.
1t would actually be good economy in the State
to furnish paper to every family-or at least to
every family whose property was less than FIVE
hundred dollars in value. 1t would tend greatly
to remove that foolish prejudice against education,
which pervades the lower classes, and prevents
them from availing themselves of conyeniences for
mental improvement that already surround them.
The greatest difficulty which the schoolmaster en-
counters is the total absence Of all curiosity or
desire to learn. When such is the case, and the
parent indulgent, the consequence is, that the
child plays truant with impunity, and all the ad-
montions or entreaties of the pedagogue will meet
with contempt, or soon be forgotten in the total
absence of all incentive to an incpient mental ex-
ertion. The entire system of education is based
upon false theory, when it precudes the idea Of
inducing and prompting the mind to study from
the love of study and generous aspiration to mer
it the respect and esteem of others. The former
of these incentives, however, is the noblest, the
most potent and generally most easily aroused
when properly managed 1t is that sleepless God
like principle in man, which urges the mind on
and on to grasp all knowledge and explore the
depths and shoals of science. And whenever m
educational system fails, it will fail because Of
the absence of this principle. If the child desires
information there are few parents who would not
deprive themselves of its services, and at least per.
nit it to find out the pathway to knowledge. And
vet, to what other resource shall we turn, for
something to awaken this never dying principle,
than the newspaper? When, as is too frequently
the case the mind of the parent is still slumber,
ing in primal chaos, when there is no home dis
cipline, no ireside culture, no example worthy Of
imitation, no mind whose contact is likely to eli
cit spark of genius, is not the case hopeless
unless revivifyng element be brought from
distance, to spread around the home circle
genial and quickening influence unknown before
And through no other medium but the newspaper
can that element be inoculated.
But this incalculable benefit is not the sole ad
vantage that the newspaper brings. 1t forms al
innocent amusement and supplies qualification
for that proclirity, which folly alone will attemp
torepress And pleased and delighted at home, ths
desire to stroll over the country, and attend friv
olous parties, seek immoral company, and finally
to resort to some low doggery, would no Longer
give torment to the unhappy mother.
The actual information gained by reading th'
paper cannot be estimated, because it is so vari
ous-embracing the entire encyclopedia of knowl
edge. But no man can be good republican, OF
good citizen, who does not take paper for th'
idea of that amount of education necessary to con
stitute these is inseperable from the idea of {
newspaper reader. 1t is the duty then of oil mer
to subscribe and pay for at least one paper; it il
the duty of the State to furnish one to all pool
families it is the duty Of all good citizens ant