Richland beacon., 1873-07-19
THE NEWSPAPER.


terms, / think, somewhat extravaoant.
Thus hear people say that the time is
soon coming when editing will be a
much more useful occupation than
preaching, and that the newspaper is
going to supercede the pulpit. Will
the press, then, ever take the place of
books or materially diminish them? |
think the press will be to books what
the ocean is to ships; it will bear them
up it will give them medium and an
opportunity that they never have had,
but it will never supplant them. Allu-
sions has been fifty made here to the
propriety of introducing newspapers in
to our schools. There should not be
the slightest objection to that, but you
never will take school books out of the
way. If you do anything you will do
this. YOu will have more and better
schOOl-boOks than yOu have now, and
newspapers to boot but You are never
going to have such fiat school books as
newspapers are. Our boys and girls
will read more, and gather up scraps
and fragments of information from
newspapers, but the books will after all
be the staple of instruction until such
time as the living book is the only
teacher, and that time should not be
far distant, for that is the right teaching.
Ii you turn from schOOl-bOoks to scien-
tific works, although much may be
done by the newspapers in the direc-
ton of science, they will never take the
place of scientific treaties. 1t has been
found by publishers that it is profita-
bic to run novel first through lead
ing paper, and that it sells afterward all
the more for its first having been in the
papers. 1t is in the same manner true
of scientific works. Let them be dis
tributed in the newspapers, and the de-
mand will be equal or greater for them
in the books.
Take classical and general literature.
There no newspaper will ever take the
place of these. The library has moth
ing to fear. The book publisher has
nothing to fear. The newspaper is to
be the right hand power to promote a
wider book literature in this land, and
when every single county paper has ev-
cry principal family among its SUBJ
scribers books will follow newspapers,
and books will never supercede them,
nor will newspapers supercede books.
And this is as it ought to be; for the
newspaper is to be new force not su-
perceding any old one. Will the news
paper ever be substitute for the pull
pit? The pulpit will change. 1t has
changed. It is changing, but it is not
losing its root; it is not losing its fruit.
There was a time, and this is true of all
institutions of civilization in the earlier
periods of every community, when the
functions were performed by fewer
organizations. Once the pulpit was
the home of learning; the law
yer, the doctor, the schoOlmaster,
and the minister throughout the towns
had all the culture, but to-day they do
not by any means have it all their own
way, and little by little the magazine
teaches sometimes just as well as the
pulpit, sometimes even better, and
even the newspapers are coming up
with matter and thought. The scien-
tific books are coming up, and scientific
knowledge is no longer distilled from
the pulpit. The pulpit is being shut.
not out, but it is no longer its function
to distribute throughout tn community
all or most the knowledge they possess.
The church is more and more shut up
to spiritual matters. Not that it has
not the liberty when it pleases to make
the applications of spiritual truth to
human life, but there are other Organi-
cations and institutions to do these
things. and less and less does it devolve
upon the minister of the gospel. All
the professions then, instead OF being
in any sense weakened or suppressed 10y
the progress of journalism, are to be
rather strengthened, helped, not him
dered. 1t would be we'll for those that
have an over-sanguine conception of the
power of journalism to consider that it
derives its power from the community
itself, and that the community is a
greater power than any institution in it
ever can be. We are apt to think OF
society rather as an aggregation of indi-
viduais. We scarely think of it as it is,
a vital organic whole, and we seldom
think how much it is true that every
institution and every organization in
society is itself subject to the greater
power of the whole. The will-pOwer OF
the mass. the thought-power of the
mass, the energy of enthusiasm that
belongs to the mass, and more than @
match for anything in the shape of al
organ. in the shape of book or paper
I don't believe, in the first place, that
there is ever to be such an enormous
concentration of circulation as many
people think. I have heard sanguine
publishers say that there have beer
400, 900 papers published weekly Of
this, that, or the other magazine why
not /, 100000? Why is it not possible
for some great capitalized concern t.
print paper in such a manner that il
may have 1900, 900 subscribers? Wha
king on his throne would feel like al
editor then? Now it sounds we'll. En-
gineers used to think that they cOuli
increase the speed of railway trains tt
even 100 miles an hour; but the resis
tance is in an inverse ratio to the In
crease, and engineers have found tina
there is practical limit of speed.
don't believe that there will ever com,
time when journal will exist will
500. 900 regular subscribers year b,
year-bona fide subscribers l mean
There are natural limits to competition
The channels of community are SO di
vided up that do not believe there vii
ever be such large circulation, but j
is certainly in the power OF every jour
nal in the country to reach the Who'll
man. Journals that suit the bassila
man will be largely confined to the bas
silar part of the people in the communi
ty. The speaker insisted that nothin
should go into the journal that is NO
fit to be read by every member of tn