The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1881-06-15
Newspapers and Public Education.

The following are the concluding
paragraphs of a thoughtful address
on "The American Newspaper and
American Education" read at the
last session of the Social Science
Association, by Prof. J. NJ. Gregory,
of Chicago:
The American press does not and
Will not misrepresent the American
people. With the miserable excep-
ton of some bitter malcontent here
and there the writers of the press
haye given hearty and intelligent
support to our institutions of learn
ing, high and low. The papers have
also freely published educational
news and essays, but they can do
more. They ought to do more.
They occupy vantage ground from
which they can lend to the Ameri-
can school system a force which
these systems can never hope to at
tain without such aid. In an im-
portant degree the newspapers oi
America hold its school interests in
their hands. Let them treat public
education as they do every other
great public enterprise and concern
ment. Every great public interest
has its representative in the corps Of
editors Of our great metropolitan
papers. They have their political
editor, their commercial editor, theiI
literary editor, their agricultural ed
itor, their law reporter, and so on
through every line of public move
ment. Let them add now a compe-
tent educational editor or reporter
one whose thorough and practical
knowledge of his field shall enable
him to gather and sift educational
news, to explain and criticise edu-
cational facts and theories, to an
swer wisely educational questions
from every source, and to put into
common and public speech the edu.
cational feeling and thought of his
age. Such a writer will call forth
other writers and observers. The
small papers viii follow the lead Of
the great metropolitan sheets, and
there will be poured into the schools
of the country the same spirit of en-
ergy and of improvement which the
press has awakened in other public
interests. Let the sharp but intelli-
gent criticisms of these educational
editors be exerted upon our schools,
and we shall no longer need or fear
the occasional assaults which have
of late half alarmed and half amused
US by their half truths and hall
falsehoods. With such aid from the
American newspapers, the American
schools could be ma, to render
double returns for the immense
outlays of time, money and talent
expended upon them.
The press thus direc' d and the
school system thus new Y inspired
will. mutually react. The papers
will, as they ought, find their way
into the schoolrooms. The scholars
will be taught their uses, and will
furnish them more interested and
intelligent readers. In this mighty
problem of the adequate education
of our citizenship-a problemEow-
ing daily more important 70 the
public-no new force seems nearer
or fuller of promise than this. Let
this gigantic array of the newspapers
of America be set fully upon this
work of popular education. Let the
schools in turn introduce the news
paper among their text books; let
the children of the nation be taught
to read these papers intelligently
thoughtfully and critically, and we
have at work in the press of this
country an agency never surpassed
for the education of an enlightened
free people.