The New York herald., 1871-02-26
The Mission Of the Press.


might be characterized as lacking common
sense 1t is recognized in breakfast table con-
versations and in after-dinner orations. 1t is
praised or blamed from the pulpit and the
platform, in the household or in the legislative
halls of nations. 1t creates war and makes
peace, overthrows dynasties and rebuilds en-
pires, dethrones tyrants and bids the oppressed
go free. 1t is power felt and acknowledged
in all the affairs of human life, and is the most
wonderful agency for good or evil which mod
ern progress and civilization have produced.
Ii is safe to assert that without the newspaper
press we should not have had those marvel
ious discoveries and appliances of science in
rapid transit through earth and air and ocean.
Without the stimulus of the press and the in
telligence which it conveys we should be until
now consuming week or two in journeying
from New York to Albany, and two or three
months in getting to England, as our fore
fathers did, But the press, by the interchange
of thought between men of different places and
different ages, stimulates our faculties and
makes difficult problems easy of solution. 1t
shows us how far others have gone before us
in any given directions and, with this
knowledge, we start where they stopped, and
by diligent application, we approach nearer to
perfection than they. The imperfection of
human nature precludes the possibility of per-
fection of thought in any single being but the
thoughts of many minds brought together upon
any given object may produce perfection as
| nparlv q tho hD,a inf oil
in forms and things, can produce it. Hence,
what we so readily claim as inventions of our
own day and generation, are, for the most
part, but the development and completion Of
the thoughts and ideas of other men in other
ages. And the additions and improvements
constantly made to works of science and art,
invention and discovery, which we are so apt
to look upon now as perfect and complete,
declare to us very plainly that perfection has
not yet been attained. But while the press is
a stimulator of science and art and invention
its mission is higher aud nober. 1t has
threefold duty to perform for mankind
namely, to educate the trinity of our nature,
the physical the intellectual and the spiritual
| and to make us as nearly as we may become
! perfect beings. This is the true mission of the
| press.
| In the early ages of The world, and, indeed,
far into the history of our race, mankind lived
in and for the lower nature, and life was bat
| tie for focks and herds, for houses and lands,
for bread and water--in short, it was q battle
with the common lot of humanity. Such a
sphere of existence is little better than that of
| the purely animal, whose principle is that
might makes right and that the stronger may
and ought to destroy the weaker. But here
and there along the line of life appeared men
| living in a different and higher plane Of life
the intellectual or spiritual; and by and by
| this leaven began to leaven the whole lump.
Desires were stimulated, thoughts grew and
| expanded, and the printing press came into
being, followed by the locomotive and the steam
boat and the telegraph and all those wonder
/ ful agencies of nineteenth century civilization
which we behold and admire God has so
constituted man and nature that in the fulness
Of time every legitimate desire and want Of
the body and the intellect Of man will find its
| supply and satisfaction in nature. And it is
1 tHC DiloSiOu VI tuC piCcS W uucCt OuI tuOuSHtS
and our desires and to lead US TO the fountains
Of pure enjoyment
| But its mission ends not here. We have
said that its work was threefold. When,
therefore, it has led US from the purely physi-
cal to the intellectual it must proceed step
higher, else it fails in its true mission Man
kind is ever growing, ever developing from
the lower into the higher from the animal to
the intellectual and thence to the spiritual
and this is the only theory of development
which can stand the tests Of time and of his
tory. The mission of the press, if it be true
to ITSELF must, therefore, be to elevate man
| into this higher nature And, as one of our
own most eminent citizens and journalists said
q few evenings ago at college dinner, s'the
press, important as is its Office, is but the
servant of the human intellect and it's minis
try is for good or for evil according to the
character of those who direct it. The press
| is a mill which grinds all that is put into its
hopper. Fill the hopper with poisoned grain
and it will grind it to meal, but there is death
| in the bread How shall we be sure to feed
these massive and ever-humming millstones
with only the product of wholesome harvests,
the purest and finest wheat, unmingled with the
seeds Of any noxious weed?' The query is an
important one, and no paper can be doing its
legitimate work thoroughly which caters only
to one part Of mans nature. And, fully i'm
pressed with this truth, we have launched the
HERALD on its mission to educate and improve
| cpivit,,oo N vuo1t {ho ufo
or physical. Hence the HERALD is more
nearly perfect paper-a true minister of man
kind-than any other journal in the world.
We say it not boastfully, but as a matter of
fact and Of history. But we, Of course, ex-
| pect to be copied and initiated by and by, just