Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1853-1862, 1860-09-01

VaIUE OF NEWSPAPERS ADVERTISEMENTS AN INDEX
TO THE CHARACTER of PEoHE.-The United States,
says the Boston Herald, is literally country of
newspapers No other people read so extensively.
and in no other country are the masses so generally
educated and newspapers so cheap. The newspa-
per is an institution peculiar to this country Here
it's necessity, coin in universal circulation and
the Of tine woodmsn has hardly opened the
way for the rude home of the new settler, ere the
newspaper comes to relieve the monotony of his
solitude, to enlghten his mind, and to educate his
Children. The mechanic returns from his daily
task to rest while he hears from affections lips the
daily record Of events, detailed in his welcome
newspaper. The drayman peruses his paper while
waiting for his load-the marketman while waiting
for his customers the farmer while escaping the hot
sun at md day,-men in railroad and steam
boats. fly on the wings of steam from city to city,
ana land hundreds of miles from home just as they
have Ierused 'all the daily papers purchased for
few ctnts when they started. A people with such
facilities these. can never forget their rights as
freemen, and their blessings the inheritors of a
matchless liberty, and unequaled and extending
civilization. The newspaper is the common reposi-
tory of everything of general concern that is DONE
said thought and suffered, within its range of &C
tive circulation. 1t bears record of the peoples
tastes and the means enjoyed for satisfying Them of
their industry and its results of their opinions and
of the processes by VII they formed, modified |
and changed; of their +. tlcs, their religion their
social relations and habits, their virtue and their
vices, in short of their whole existence as commu-
nifty Of men, We think the advertisements alone of
popular daily newspaper possess greater historical
value, when examined for a period extending
through fifty years. than all the historical records
embodied in the literature of ancient Greece, of
course assuming that the civilization in each case
for that period is of equal interest to the world. In
them VIC see, from day to day, what people buy and
what they SELL what they make, what they eat and
what they wear, what they enjoy, where they trav-
el and where they live, when they die, when and
whom they marry, when and why they are punish
ed, and what are their rewards. what books are
sold what laws enacted, and what laws are VIC
lated what new religions are taught. by whom and
how the face Of the earth is Travelled, and the great
deep navigated- All these things, and many more,
are taught by the advertisements of daily journal
They disclose the civilization of people with full
ness and correctness to which the most elaborate,
the most authentic the most philosophical the most
ingenious and faithfully written histories of an
tguity do not approach. Newspapers, as they are
now conducted, have become such complete expo
nents Of the thoughts and dongs of the world, that
they are quite indispensable to him who means to be
successful in what be undertakes, and he who care
fully peruses all the papers that within his
reach, even if his duties will permit him to read
nothing else viii find that he gradually amasses an
amount of information which other means would
have enabled him to supply in short a time he
has his disposal To the young should be pointed
out these excellcnces and they should be early
taught the value Of their daily paper, that they
well as their elders may know something of the
world in which they live, and of the important
events which constantly going on around them,
and they should be made to understand that tie
newspapers are powerful auXiiaries to their books
in enabling them to form correct opinions of many
subjects which would be otherwise imperfectly I'M
derstood; that what they learn to day, may be
tradicted or changed in short, that it is
necessary for them, as well for every one else,
to consider the indispensable Importance Of news
paper to all who would not be found tagging be-
hind The rest of the world in that information which
every day brings forth.
THE NASHVILLE EVENING DENocEAT.-The second
number of this new paper made its appearance
Thursday evening We understand that it is to be
heuceforth issued regularly