Knoxville journal. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1874-1986, 1874-09-10

and / am responding lecanse | adEnit
this relationship with all the duties
which IL enioins.
That the Press i friendly TO the
schools is probably the experience Of
ali teachers here assembled. Ia
every movement for their sdvantage
liz your several localities, to whom
do YOU 6rst apply? Where do you
look for sympathy, encouragement
and support? / hazard little in say
ing that yoar County superintend-
ents-that whoever leads off I'm
any educational euterpTise--confi-
IDENTIFY expects that the editors OF
the neighborhood can be relied upon
to sustain the endeavor. In the cor
ner Of the country printing Office, or
in the more ambitious editors
room" of the city daily, these
school projects receive their first inn
pulse IL is there that the breath Of
life Is breathed into the ideal form
Of the protector, and they are sent
forth living missionaries Of progress
and reform. Is 1t because newspa-
per men are more intelligent than
the masses that they are thus ap-
pealei to, Or because they are more
enterprising and appreciative ? Part
Iy both. The tendency OF the edi-
tors vocation is 10 polish of the
coarser surfaces Of his mind--to give
him a keener perception of what
ever is intellectual--and hence the
teacher aud educator find in him a
ready auxiliary-the willing ear and
active hand, to assist in every worthy
enterprise.
But this only indicates, rather than
sets forth the close relationship exist
ing between the schools and the
Press. If not children Of the same
parents, they are at least blood rela-
tives. The public school, like the
newspaper, is modern product, and
the germs Of both were spawned
when the art of printing was discov-
cred. Until then learning was con-
fined TO the few, and the many were
doomed to ignorance. But printing
| was To the world of mind what the
sun was to chaotic darkness when
the creator said Let there be Light
| 1t was the dawn Of higher civiIiza-
ton, and before the Frightening
effulgence Of Its beams, as the Press
rose i'm power, the twin deforn,ities
Of Ignorance and Superstiti on
either covered i'm dark corners or
fled affrighted away. The newspa-
per, az facilities for producing it in
| creased, created q demand for schools,
and the diffusion of learning created
a demand for newspapers. Each ope-
| rated as an incentive to the other,
and the strength thus reciprocally
developed, called for higher culture
In the schools, and more dignity and
ability in the press. If these posi-
tions are sound, we are prepared to
lay down the proposition that the
Press and the Schools are the chief e1u-
cators Of the people.
The school first initiates the young
child into the mystery of extracting
ideas from arbitrary characters on
the printed page. He masters the
names and sounds Of letters; then
ljoins them into words the words
convey the meaning Of some simple
story; and then dawns upon his
mental vision the consciousness OF a
ltriumph-that he has learned to talk
with his book !; to understand the
silent, speechless page lin short,
that he has learned to read! Very
soon more ambitious themes engage
his attention he hears of local in
cidents, and wishes to know more of
them--the family newspaper con-
tains the information for which he
seeks, and directly he Is adding to
his intellectual store knowledge of
passing events, first of the neighbor-
hood, then OF the county, the State,
and the world. The young student
of the newspaper early exhibits In
the broad scope Of his mind the in
Ivigorating force Of the association OF
ideas, and the influence is felt in
every recitation of the school&room.
This is no new discovery. More
than hundred years ago, when the
Press was young, and schools were
scant, the philosophic Franklin OBJ
served, whenever / find newspa-
per in the family find intelligent
lchildren." The same process goes on
through all the scholastic years, the
paper supplementing the schools,
and the schools creating q thirst for