Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1915-12-18
PRESS AND SCHOOL EACH |
DEPENDENT ON OTHER |
Talcott Williams Dean Of Journal
ism Outlines Their Responsibility
POINTS TO DUTY OF PRESS.
Says Newspapers Are What People
Make Them.

In his address in Mccoy Hall, .Balti-
more, Thursday afternoon. DR.. Talcott
Williams, dean of the Pulitzer School
of Journalism at Columbia University
pointed out the great responsibility the
public had toward the newspaper as an
institution
He said. in part;
The newspapers and the public
schools together conduct the education
of the community The public school
educates the child; the newspaper, the
adult. They are the only two agen-
cies which are supported by all the
community and desired by all the COM
munity. They are criticized by some,
but by the whole mass. the whole round
of society they are always approved.
Each is representative. In the public
school, national consciousness is Gre
ated. Through the newspaper, the
consciousness of the city, state and the
nation is created, and by the same
and necessary process, that as man is
so are his thoughts, as community is
what it knows about itself.
ITO each. to ALL and to every calling
VI TIE III SOUle
shape daily, weekly or monthly. from
a penny newspaper through all the
range of publications, creates mutual
knowledge and a common conscious
ness wherever men know the same
thing about each other
THE author writes a book to express
the public. The author wants the book
to SELL but his primary purpose is to
place his thought where it can be sold
Neither the newspaper nor the news
paper man exists. or can exist, unless
the machinery is in full operation for
the daily and general sale of what he
writes.
THE force, the power and the sting
of the newspaper lies in the circum-
stance that when you open a news
paper at the breakfast table you know
that the entire continent is hearing
the same message. You may have long
known of particular condition of af-
fairs-some scandalous misuse of pub
lie responsibility which has passed
from mouth to mouth. Nothing is ac-
complished. A newspaper publishes it
and instantly all the machinery of JUS
tice is set in motion slack district
attoreny,ag rand jury composed of men
who are perfectly willing to let the
subject alone and judge who had no
desire to try the case, and petit jury
satisfied to let the evil rest, all are
forced to act by publicity.
ANY institution in the community
languishes if it neglects this power of
creating knowledge, consciousness and
interest in regard to itself. This is
true of churches.
1.-The newspaper began with a single
sheet offering single piece of news
1t has added one interest after another
until it now covers almost the whole
round of life, for the whole round still
remains to be achieved in its central
and organic action. Further, as Mat
thew Arnold says, the newspaper that
a country vents it has, it is equally
true that every city can have and has
the newspaper it wants.
"If women were as careful about the
newspapers and advertisements they
take into their houses as they are OF
the bonnets they take out of them, the
whole level of the newspaper would
be raised.
"If the various forces of the commu-
nifty for good, instead of simply COM
planning about the newspaper, made it
perfectly clear what kind of news
paper they wanted, they would get an
instant response. There is no news
paper which is not every day of its ex-
istence printing what will not add to
its profit and aiding good causes for
which it will receive no return.
Through all the progress of society
since the newspaper began to exist it
| has led reforms. 1t has created an
| immediate visible and vocal public
| opinion 1t has it's faults, but they
| are the faults of the conditions of its
existence. 1t is also true of it that it
| is loved by the many. 1t gives them
! an open window on the worlds life.
Without it self-government cannot ex
| list. Through it the average conscious
ness of the many impresses its high
1 law uDOn the intalliQenca of tho fav-