Delaware State journal and statesman. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1855-1870, 1861-02-12
F"m ,he Stw Yors NJ h d st,
Education and Liberty.
ny W. II. ALLEN, LID,
President Of Girard College.
no III

NO III.
As free schools are the teachers OF childhood,
so free press is the instructor OIL manhood. II
carries forward to the end of life the education
Of the people which the schools commence ID
their youth, but by different methods, and in
more varied and practical forms. By its count
less books, reviews, magazines, pamphlets, and
newspapers, it becomes the peripatetio philoso-
pher, schoOlmaster, poet, and story-teller of
every family. 1t visits every Rreside as travel
lor and historian, politician and statesman,
moralist and preacher, and is always a welcome
guest II comes with tale aud song of slady-
love and fatherland," and takes away from min
strel, bard, and troubadour their occupation and
their laurels. II even forestalls the lecturer,
aud reports him in full before he reports him
self, and sends the Congressman's speech to his
constituents some hours before it is delivered -
1t brings to US at evening whatever has been
done or said in the morning, whether wise or
foolish, witty or dull, and permits us to slumber
over whatever is commonplace without rising
from our easy chair or extingulshing our cigar.
1t collects the Attic salt which in the evening
has been scattered on stage and platform, in
popular assembly and political convention, in
halls Of legislation and courts of justice, in pull
pit and rOstrum, to season our steak at break
fast; aud it mingles the odors of thousand
flowers of rhetoric with the aroma Of our coffee.
But, says the objector, the writer has told but
half tho story. His testimony is &c parte, and
must be received with many grains Of allowance.
The press is indeed perlpaIetic philosopher,
but the philosopher is an Eplcurus as often as
an Aristotle; it is q sehoUmaster, but the
schoolmaster is as likely to be Squeers as an
Arnold it is poet of sensuality as well as Of
sense, and a story,teler in both acceptatious OF
the word Your traveller is a Munchausen I;
your politician, juggler; your statesman, a
Machiavelli; and your moralist, MOrmon.-- -
Your evening vistant will serve up the recUfds
Of the police court as salad and the condi-
mcnts of your breakfast will be redOlent OF run
and rOwdies bar rooms aud lager beer Con-
gressional quarre- and quack n'edlciues. You
free press l. an arch deueiver, an arrant knAvei
thai cheats you with fal't pretences, pande tt
VICE, "a byp or e III rengidn, au engine vi mora
depravity aud political corrup ion, aud socit
nuisance wh ch ought to be ahated.
THIS Ii e1 parte testimony with vengeance.
! Its "a aey rs iu n'tr butug 10 the treedom
I the pres thu lun. catalogue OF evils which al,
the gu crop ot lis unbnhlrd license. Yet, il
view of thest evils, not f b uest but snort
slghled men have wished hat old Gutenberg hat
amused hiui-el with his jack knife by whiting
bits OF wood into any other shape than littlG
parallelopipedons with letters of the alphabe
carved gu one end. They regard incOntinen
printing as the great vice Of the age, and fon
of long primer Ms Panjora's box without ever
hepe at the bottom In their opinion the mul-
titudp of books and periodicals. which the prea
sends forth every year IS, like the food of wate
which issued from the mouth OF the great rel
drngon in the Apocalypse, TO sweep virtue from
/ the earth, or