Connecticut western news., 1881-07-06
JOURNALISM.
Goldwin Smith on the Power and
 Influence of the Press.

Goldwin Smith recently said :-"I have many candid friends, and some have said, What do you go into jour- nalism for? You ought to write q book the only way to make yourself immortal and to become 8 benefactor to your race is through writing book We'll, considering the ponderous con- tents of our bookstores and the volumi- nous catalogues which bookworms, such as I am, receive, I almost think that the benefactor of humanity is the man who refrains from writing a book. I SUD- p ose did set out in life to write book. suppose that was my manifest des- tiny, but like other ma nifest destinies, it was not fulfilled. was taken away from my college early in life, became mixed up more or less with public men, and was drawn into the press. So I became a journ alist, and a journalist I have remained. I do not accuse or com- plain of my destiny. It js perfectly true that the works of journalist are ephemeral they go into the neither world of old files and are forgotten. But does not the same fate befall good many books ? Look at the bookshelves of any great library. What a necrop- oIis of the immortal is there. There, amid cobwebs which are never dis turbed, sleep the great masters, expon- ents of the civil law, who were once as gods for their wisdom. There sleep the authors of many a system of philosophy which now has no disciples. There sleep the authors of many a system of science which has been super seded hundred times by the aid of modern thought. The fact is that to be immortal you must not only have an undying genius, but an undying subject. Shakespeare, Homer, Ger vantes had undying subjects; but l doubt that even they are what they were to their contemporaries. We all wish to survive in a certain work, but not to one in & hundred millions is it given to become immortalized by liter. ature. We may hope, however, to sur- vive in the effects of all honest life. The opportunity to. do this is open in a large measure to all journalists. After all, what is journal? It is a paper, g pamphlet, or book. If you look al the great works of Harrington, Hobbs or Locke, or of any great writer, what are they but the current thought oi the time worked up into a permanent shape? And it is we who make the current thought of our time. Writing an editorial is, as you know, not the easiest matter in the world, but there are many who think they can do il until they try. The writer of an edi' torial is not producing an immortal work. He is trying, to produce dis. tinct effect at the time, and to do that he must have certain art. He must give his work 8 certain unity, form and finish, and although he cannot bring in any quantity of learning and informa. tion without appearing pedantlc, yet all
 he has read and knows will work in the way of richness and illustration, an6 will lend to the superiority of his pro-
 auctions. I recollect sitting at table in London beside the editor of leading journal. He said:-" I am in distress
 I have lost one of my regular writers. I did not know about journalism at the time, so remarked:-" suppose yor will have to get another. He replied:- "Get another! will have to get three and will be surprised if at the end O year one of these three writers does as we'll as the writer I have lost"