News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1884-02-14
THE WORK OF THE NEWSPAPERS.
What Henry Ward Beeeher Said to Lot
of New York Editors.

As to the editors and lawyers, they
may be considered as simply the thinkers
of our great profession. The newspaper
is great force; but the common schools
| hold to be the great institution for pro-
noting the intelligence of these times.
Suppose you divide mans head into
four parts, the intellectual part, the
moral sentiments. the social and the ami
NAL passions. and you have about the
only departments from which the papers
may acquire news. As it is necessary to
go to the bottom. 1t is supposed that
the newspapers are at the bottom of this
subject. Whatever the animal does
stimulated by imagination, whatever
there may be of cheatery, lust or
any variety of crimes, be sure that it
will be found out by the newspapers,
and they will all have it. Whatever
there is in the next department receives
less attention, but still no inconsiderable
amount. When it comes to the moral
elements of man there is not much
news abroad, and the collectors en-
ployed are not specially qualified to re-
port it. As to the purely intellectual
side and its news, have not heard of
many that have died of excessive labor
IN that direction.
As 1 travelled west and looked at
papers in Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago,
st. Paul, Minneapolis, Portland and
San Francisco, the principal cities of
Texas and all the great cities of the
South, I acquired an honest admiration
for the papers. Not that they are not
liable to the same criticisms that have
intimated in regard to the others, but as
collectors of news, think that the
further West you go the more news
there is. In the Chicago papers every
county seems to come in for separate
editor. If a hoop flies off barrel it is
recorded; if a chicken coop is turned
over, it is recorded. l think, taking the
intelligence that runs through them for
week, one-half of it could be COM
pressed into your hand so far as the i'm
portance would be concerned. 1t is the
itch of newsmongering run mad. But
/ think it has run to its limit and that
they will run more in the direction of
news in the higher departments of the
mind. 1 do not know that you under
stand the religious development of the
dailies of New York. In my recollection
| it was considered a jest to print relig-
ious news in New York daily. Now
| they are printing great deal of relig-
ious news provided you call sermons
religious.
But the newspapers of our continent
are gradually becoming a great deal
more able ministers by which the COM
mon people are becoming intelligent.
1t Is the great work of the printing press
in cooperation with the schools that de-
serves our consideration and our atten-
ton, and this is we'll Why, in the
olden times England had greenhouses.
There they could raise tropical plants,
early vegetables, and all that sort of
thing; but there was not one man in
10000 that could have a greenhouse.
Summer beats all the greenhouses out
of sight. They were for creating green
houses; America is for creating summer,
by which the whole mass of the common
people will grow as fruit and grasses
grow, without artificial heat or special
arrangement for their sustenance. Mr..
Arnold may complain that our people
have not light and sweetness; but gun
powder has not much of light or sweet
ness about it until you touch it off. We
are on our way to do much. We shall
have a tropical summer by-and-bye in
which the great mass of the common
people shall rise up to knowledge be-
cause of their birthright, and besides
that shall represent the highest civiliza-
ton as well as the best knowledge of the