Democratic Northwest and Henry County news. [volume] (Napoleon, O. [Ohio]) 1894-1905, 1896-03-26

knowing the evil; Is taught TO select the
good. Keep children under the impression
that all Is fair and right in the world, and
when they go out into it they will be as
poorly prepared to struggle with 1t as a
child who is thrown into tho middle of the
Atlantic and told to learn how to swim.
Our only complaint Is when sin Is made
attractive and morality dull, when vice Is
painted with great headings and good
deeds are put in obscure corners iniquity
set up In great primer and Righteousness
IN nonpareil. Sin is loathsome; make it
loathesome. Virtue Is beautiful; make 1t
beautiful.
1t would work a vast improvement II
all our papers-religious, political, literary
should for the most part drop their i'm
personality. This would do better justice
to newspaper writer's. Many of the stron-
gest and best writer's of the country live and
die unknown and are denied their just
fame The vast public never learns who
they are. Most Of them are on comparative
small income and after awhile their hand
forgets its cunning, and they are without
resources, left to die. Why not at least
have his initial attached to his most i'm
portant workp 1t always gave additional
force to an article when you occasionally
saw added to some significant article in
the old New York Courier and Enquirer
]. W. W., or in The Tribune H. g., or In
The Herald J. G. B., or in The Times H.
J. R., or in Sho Evening Post W. c. B.,
or in The Evening Express Z. B.
While this arrangement would be fair
and just thing for newspaper writers 1t
would be defense for the public. 1t is
sometimes true that things damaging to
private character are said. Who Is respon-
sible? 1t is the 1--WE" of the editorial or
reportorial columns Every man in every
profession or occupation ought to be re-
sponsible for what he does. No honorable
man will ever write that which he would
be afraid to sign. But thousands of per-
sons have suffered from the impersonality
Of newspapers. What can one private cit
izen wronged In his reputation do in
contest with Misrepresentation multiplied
into 20, 900 or so, 900 oopiesp An injustice
done in print is illimitably worse than an
injustice done in private life. During loss
Of temper man may say that for which
he will be sorry in ten minutes, but a
newspaper injustice has first to be written,
set up in type, then the proof taken off
and read and corrected, and then for six
or ten hours the presses are busy running
off the issue. Plenty of time to correct;
plenty of time to cool off; plenty of time
to repent. But all that is hidden in the
impersonality of a newspaper. 1t will be
a long step forward when all is changed
and newspaper writer's get credit for the
good and are held responsible for the evil.
Editorial Professors.
Another step forward for newspaperdom
will be when in our colleges and universi-
ties we open opportunities for preparing
candidates for the editorial chair. We
have in such institutions medical depart
ments, law departments. Why not edi-
torial Departmental Do the legal and
healing professions demand more culture
and careful training than the editorial or
| reportorial professions? know men may
tumble by what seems accident into a
newspaper office as they may tumble into
other occupations, but 1t would be an in
calculable advantage If those proposing q
newspaper life had an institution to which
they might go to learn the qualifications,
the responsibilities, the trials, the tempta-
tions, the dangers, the magnificent oppor-
lectureship in which there shall appear the
leading editors Of the United States telling
the story of their struggles, their victories,
their mistakes, how they worked and what
they found out to be the best way of work
ing. There will be strong men who will
climb up without such aid into editorial
power and efficiency. So do men climb
up to success in other branches by sheer
grit. But if we want learned institutions
to make lawyers and artists and doctors
and ministers we much more need learned
institutions to make editors, who occupy
a position of influence a hundredfold great
er. do not put the truth too strongly
when say the most potent influence for
good on earth is good editor, and the
most potent influence for evil is a bad one.
The best way to re-enforce and improve
the newspaper is to endow EDITORIAL pro-
fessorates. When will Princeton or Har-
ward or Yale or Rochester lead the way?
Another blessing of the newspaper is the
foundation it lays for accurate history of
the time in which we live. We for the
most part blindly guess about the ages
that antedate the newspaper and are de-
pendent upon the prejudices of this or that
historian. But after 100 or 300 years what
splendid opportunity the historian will
have to teach the people the lesson of this
day. Our Bancrofts got from the early
newspapers of this country, from the Bos-
ton Newsletter, the New York Gazette
and The American Rag Bag and Royal
Gazetteer and Independent Chronicle and
Massachusetts Spy and the Philadelphia
Auorra accounts of Perry's victory and
Hamilton's duel and Washington's death
and Boston massacre and the oppressive
foreign tax on luxuries which turned Bos-
ton harbor into teapot and Paul Reveres
midnight ride and Rhode Island rebellion
and South Carolina notification. But
what field for the chronicler of the great
future when he opens the files Of 100 stand
ard American newspapers, giving the
minutiae of all things occurring under the
social, political, ecclesiastical, information
al headings! Five hundred years from
now, if the world lasts so long, the student
looking for stirring, decisive history will
pass by the misty corridors of other cen
turies and say to the libraries, Find mo
the volumes that give the century in which
the American presidents were assassinat-
ed, the civil war enacted, and the cotton
gin, tho steam locomotive and telegraph
and electric pen and telephone and cylinder
presses were invented.
A Christian Press.
Once more I remark that good news
paper is blessing as an evangelistic in
tluenoe. You know there is great change
in our day taking place. All the secular
newspapers of the day-for am not speak
ING now of the rnliniouS nnwsnarars-all
Not to be Trifled With.
From Cincinntai Gazette.l