Arizona republican., 1901-12-24
1.-THE WHITE PERIL"

How can a population living a wholly
artificial life in great cities be the same
as a population living in country cot
tages and small towns? How can a
population in which every man daily
soaks his mind in modern Journalism
be the same as population of whom
some read the Bible and few sound
books, and the rest nothing at all? Be-
fore the Industrial revolution. the ordi-
nary working of economic law left the
majority of manual laborers unenlight-
ened indeed. but natural in mind,
habits and emotion; delighting in
sports in which they themselves took
part. and cheered by songs, ballads
and stories of their own countryside
that were never vulgar and often ex-
quisite. Meanwhile that large minor
ity on whom education was then be-
slowed had religion. imagination. intel
lect But all seem to have possessed
natural taste in arts and crafts Gas all
their surviving houses. furniture and
utensils show. And these qualities,
sin widest commonalty spread were
the general conditions that produced in
Individual cases the high triumphs of
English literature. So long as man
minded his business in cottages, farm.
mansion and shop. English life was
vigorous and beautiful. But how can
ii now be beautiful. and how even Wig
orous for anything except material
ends? For IL is the common sights
and sounds of daily life which stimu-
late or deaden the imagination. awaken
or stifie the aesthetic and the moral
qualities. No one has ever attempted
to deny this principle since Plato laid
Ii down as the reason why the artists
in his republic should by the power OF
genius trace out the nature of the fair
and the graceful, that our young men,
dwelling as II were in a heaithful re-
gion. may drink in good from every
quarter, whence any emanation from
noble works may strike upon their
eye, or their ear like gale waiting
health from salubrious lands. and win
them imperceptibly from their earliest
childhood into resemblance, love and
harmony with the true beauty of rea-
son.
What a CHASTITY satire are these old
Athenian words on the sights and
sounds that now pursue our distracted
city race from earliest childhood"
through life that is in its externals like
one long journey by the Underground!
Fifty years ago a majority of those
who could read were in some sense
educated. Therefore the press. follow
ing the law OF supply and demand. was
SO used as to appeal to an educated
public. Even those readers who were
essentially vulgar then read books and
newspapers a little above their intel
lectual level, since these came most
easily to hand. Now these conditions
have been reversed. The number of
people who can read is enormous; the
proportion of those who are educated
is small The printing press, following
the law of supply and demand. now APP
peals to the uneducated mass of all
classes. Many even of the educated.
too lazy to observe that a book or a
newspaper of 1900 does not mean the
same thing as a book or a newspaper
in 1850. join in the universal nettle
feast. and know not eating death"
Bad or Indifferent literature is thrust
into mems hands. the noise of IL is
dinned into their ears with a persist
ency against which the fewest are
proof. Not only does the vulgar read
nothing but vulgarity. so sacrificing
the chance of gradual improvement
which he used to enjoy. but the man
with better capabilities reads so con-
stantly below the true level OF his taste
and intellect that his ideals are grad
ually debased and he takes no pains to
recommend good books and journals to
his children. Until the reading of nom
sense comes to be regarded by respect
able families in the same light as dram
drinking, the press will do more uni
versal harm than the public house.
Nineteenth Century.