The evening light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1881-1883, 1882-04-01

general VIII are lney ldit'llui W '~
trusts. When they seek to lead and
not to follow public sentiment they
commit usurpation. This is a prevail
ing error of law makers. They 90 not
accept progress from the popular mind
but seek to lead it, while such is not the
office of legislation, but of the great
teacher-the press. The former should
await the common need of any law,
not enact it and expect it to operate
without need, or that the need will tol-
low. It's thus that legislation increases
when it should diminish and hence,
too, there is conflict between the
statutes and the popular will. The
press vindiCates the latter, and ndls-
pensably prevails. The press makes
opinions, inspires sympathy, magma
ties mind, while the statutes do none
of these. The press is the channel
of the common thought. 1t receives
daily, from individual minds. rlpples
and streams of mentality that are pour
ed into the great ocean, and drank
from by others, who again return
through the press new streams, per-
haps clearer or brighter, or OF more
depth or beauty. And these increasing
mental processes are better and truer,
have sources ever ascending, and
ever higher and nobler than the enact
ments of legislative bodies, who seem
rather to make laws for the sake of ex-
ercising power than to exercise power
for the sake of making just and need
full laws.
But it is less as the public guardian
than as the great teacher that the press
is widening the field of its influence
and acquiring daily more strength.
The thoroughtares and public resorts
abound with its offerings; and easy of
access and lavish of art, they lead I'M
awares the unlettered into communion
with better minds, and open the doors
of the great Temples where history
has its tablets and philosophy its horo-
scope. To the common schools OF
education the press is the powerful
auxiliary. The child learns his exer-
cises but by rote, and through the
press expands into early intercourse
with the outer world of thought and
sentiment. The gravest euloglum. or
the profoundest disIuisition, at school
presents to his mind no real hero, or
absolute truths, but through the press
he perceives individuals and events,
and is entCed into reflection and
warmed into sympathy. 1t is the press
which is cementing the bonds OF
human brotherhood, enlarging the
character, intoxicating practical
Christianity, insolring moderation, re-
sisting the partial and severe, and re-
ceiving into its embrace the universal
and liberal.
There are men who are masters IN
the commerce of the world, who take
crowns in pledge, and COnCede loans
upon the mortgage Of kingdom, that
never had other education than that
which the diurnal press supplied. The
instinct of gain is temporal power,
beyond'the rules of art or the lnspira-
tons of genius. But if it glorify the
world IN the worlds view by marvel
lous achievements in the sphere of It's
ambition, let the press, even for that,
be remembered-if only as a ChrOn-
icler of the current deeds in the mart
of nations, and a potent instlgator OF
f the intellectual forces in the direction
they were impelled to take. The time
is near when the ore of intellect shall
reign ascendant over gold, and when