event and every intellectual and social manifestation is the plague of an editor's life, the ruin of his good manners, the cause of delusion, bewilderment, and skepticism in his readers. Couple this with that other superlative folly, the rule never to retract an assertion or correct a mistake, and we have the cause of more than half the impertinence, error, and mischief of which newpapers are guilty.

A great deal is said about the slanderous character of the modern newspaper, and of its entire disregard of privacy and the right of individuals to be respected in their withdrawal from public notice. But in these respects our age is no worse than those before it. We have made error and slander more public by our inventions, but not more common, perhaps, nor more hurtful. In fact, the purely libelous industry of the press is probably less now, in comparison with its whole activity, than at any former time since pamphlets (libelli) began to be printed. This passage occurs in the letters of Prince Pückler-Muskau, written from England in 1826, before the era of railroads, to say nothing of the telegraph and the power-press:

"A strange custom in England is the continual intrusion of the newspapers into the affairs of private life. A man of any distinction not only sees the most absurd details concerning him dragged before the public, such as where he dined, what evening party he attended, and so forth, but if anything really worth telling happens to him, it is immediately made public without shame or scruple. Personal hostility thus has full scope, as well as the desire of making profitable friends. Many use the newspapers for the publication of articles to their own advantage, which they send themselves. It is easy to see what formidable weapons the press thus furnishes. Fortunately, however, the poison brings its own antidote with it; this consists in the indifference with which the public receives such communications. An article in a newspaper, after which a Continental would not show himself for three months, here excites only a

momentary laugh, and the next day is forgotten."

Would not this pass for a description of the New York newspapers, we will say? The personalities in which the editor of to-day delights, annoying as they often are, surely are no worse than those here censured, while they fill a much smaller space in the reader's mind than formerly; partly because the modern journal contains so much besides, and partly for the consoling reason given by the German prince, that so much publicity defeats its own aim and makes little impression.

-

It is also true, little as we may think it, that our American newspapers are vastly improved in most respects from what they were thirty years ago, when Dickens saw, felt, and caricatured them. How we all winced under his satire in Martin Chuzzlewit, knowing so much of it to be deserved! How the cries of the New York newsboys made our ears tingle! Here's this morning's New York Sewer! Here's this morning's New York Stabber! Here's the New York Family Spy! Here's the New York Private Listener! Here's the New York Peeper! Here's the New York Keyhole Reporter! Here's the Sewer's article upon the judge that tried him, day afore yesterday, for libel, and the Sewer's tribute to the independent jury that did n't convict him, and the Sewer's account of what they might have expected if they had!" etc., etc. This satire no longer stings us as it once did, because, notwithstanding the occasional efforts of the New York Sun, Times, and Tribune to rival the scarcely imaginary Sewer and Rowdy Journal of Martin Chuzzlewit's day,- notwithstanding the recent appearance of the interviewing reporter, that pest of society, the moral and intellectual standard of our newspapers has risen a great many degrees in thirty years.

Nor is this the only change that has taken place. Since the death of Horace Greeley and the events which preceded and followed it, there is no difficulty in perceiving that we stand at the close of a long era of American journalism, and

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are entering rapidly upon a new dispensation. The presidential campaign of 1872, and the death of Mr. Greeley, mark the end of partisan journalism in its old form, that epoch of which the New York Tribune was the product and the survivor. With the death of the founder of the Tribune," says Mr. Hudson, "party journalism pure and simple, managed by accomplished and experienced editors, inaugurated by Jefferson and Hamilton, aided by such writers as Fenno, Bache, Duane, Freneau, Coleman, Cheetham, Ritchie, and Croswell, has ceased to exist, and independent journalism becomes a fact impressed on the minds of the people." To Mr. Hudson's mind, loyal as he is to the memory and the traditions of the New York Herald, this event is but a fulfillment of the plans and hopes with which James Gordon Bennett, in 1835, announced the first publication of his great newspaper the first successful example of an independent journal in the United States. The Herald was disreputable enough in those days, and for many a long year afterwards; it has not yet achieved the best reputation in the world, with all its expeditions and discoveries, but it has been tolerably true to the purpose indicated in the first number. Mr. Bennett expressed himself with coarseness and cynicism, but with much sincerity, when he said, "In débuts of this kind many talk of principle, political principle, party principle, as a sort of steel-trap to catch the public. We mean to be perfectly understood on this point, and therefore openly disclaim all steel-traps, all principle, as it is called, all party, all polities. Our only guide shall be good, sound, practical common-sense, applicable to the business and bosoms of men engaged in every-day life. We shall support no party, be the organ of no faction or coterie, and care nothing for any election, or any candidate, from president down to a constable. We shall endeavor to record facts on every public and proper subject, stripped of verbiage and coloring, with comments when suitable, just, independent, fear

VOL. XXXIV. — NO. 201.

5

It

less, and good-tempered." This was not a very lofty ideal of editorial duty, but it was an honest one, and in the line of what the nation needed and the future promised. So far as it adhered to this profession, the Herald succeeded and deserved success; but its notorious faults have long kept its true and important mission from being fully recognized, and the proper credit given therefor. has been the rude, low-bred, boisterous pioneer, preparing the way for the finer and better race of newspapers that are to follow in its track with nobler aims, a keener sense of decency and responsibility, and a broader culture in the men who conduct them. Nor is it by any means impossible that the Herald itself may eventually become a newspaper of the kind just described.

Delighting in the great advances now making in American journalism, but not quite satisfied with any of the existing journals, there are a few persons so unreasonable as still to hope for a model newspaper, though they have never seen one, and though the most brilliant instances of journalistic success are generally coupled with grave and incurable faults. Such enthusiasts deem it possible to walk uprightly and deal justly with all mankind in the career of the journalist as much as in any other; that it is inferior to no other in the interests it protects, the need it serves, the high standard of character and performance it exacts.

"It was not for the mean;
It requireth courage stout,
Souls above doubt,
Valor unbending."

Not less does it require the deepest purpose, the most active spirit, the broadest thought and culture, the most tolerant heart. Journalism now is what the stage was in Shakespeare's time; its purpose, as Hamlet says of the "purpose of playing," "both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 't were, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure." But literature, of which journalism is now the most alert

and prolific form, has even a nobler aim than this, to describe which we must borrow the words, not of the tolerant dramatist, but of the more heroic moral poet, Milton. Its office, like that of poetry, of which it is so apt a vehicle, is also "to inbreed and cherish in a great people the seeds of virtue and public civility, to allay the perturbations of the mind and set the affections in right tune; to deplore the general relapses of kingdoms and states from justice and God's true worship; lastly, whatsoever in religion is holy and sublime, in virtue amiable or grave, whatsoever hath passion or admiration in all the changes of that which is called fortune from without, or the wily subtleties and refluxes of man's thoughts from within; all these things, with a solid and treatable smoothness to paint out and describe."

To succeed in all this, without doing injustice to the shipping list and the price current, to the last great fire, mammoth squash, Cardiff giant, new novel, or new religion; to discuss, be

sides, all the social topics, little and large, that have come upon us in the present age for consideration, — this certainly gives scope enough for the greatest activity and the best talent. Moreover, this ideal journalist, like the poet in Rasselas, must "disregard present laws and opinions, and rise to general and transcendental truths, which will always be the same. He must therefore content himself with the slow progress of his name; contemn the applause of his own time, and commit his claims to the justice of posterity. He must write as the interpreter of nature and the legislator of mankind, and consider himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners of future generations; as a being superior to time and space." The reader, still subject to these limitations, is doubtless by this time ready to cry with Rasselas, "Enough, thou hast convinced me that no human being ever can be a journalist. It is so difficult that I will at present hear no more of his labors."

F. B. Sanborn.

Edgar Fawcett.

IN taking temporary leave, last November, of my Atlantic readers, I told them that, at the age of twenty-seven, I engaged in a somewhat Quixotic enterprise, adding: "I saw what seemed to me grievous errors and abuses, and must needs intermeddle, hoping to set things right. Up to what point I succeeded, and how far, for lack of experience, I failed, or fell short of my views, some of those who have followed me thus far may wish to know.”

It was in one sense, though not in the popular one, a "sowing of wild oats;" for many of the thoughts and schemes which in those days I deemed it a duty to scatter broadcast were crude and immature enough. Yet the records of such errors and efforts if the errors be honest and the efforts well-meant serve a useful purpose. It is so much easier to intend good than to do it! Young and rash reformers need to be reminded that age and sober thought must bring chastening influence, before we make the discovery how little we know, and how much we have still to learn.

It is forty-five years since Frances Wright and I established in the city of New York a weekly paper of eight large quarto pages, called The Free Enquirer. This paper was continued for four years;

During the first year Frances Wright and I edited the paper, aided, chiefly in the business department, by Robert L. Jennings, whom I have already mentioned as one of the Nashoba trustees; then we severed connection with him. In the autumu of 1829 Miss Wright left for six months, returning in May, 1830; to remain, however, only two months, then crossing to Europe and not returning until after our paper was discontinued. From July, 1830, to July, 1831, I conducted the Free Enquirer entirely alone, aided only by occasional communications from Miss Wright; then I engaged the services of Amos Gilbert, a member of the society of Friends (Hicksite), one of the most painstaking, upright, and liberal men I ever knew, but a somewhat heavy writer, who remained until the paper closed, manging it as sole resident editor for the last five

namely, throughout 1829, 1830, 1831, and 1832. It was conducted, during a portion of that time, with Miss Wright's editorial aid, and also with other assistance; but it was chiefly managed and edited by myself.1

Looking back through nearly half a century on these stirring times, I seem to be reviewing, not my own doings, but those of some enthusiastic young propagandist in whom I still take an interest, and whom I think I am able to see pretty much as he was in those early days of hope and anticipation; upright but harebrained, with a much larger stock of boldness and force than of ballast and prudence, but withal neither mean nor arrogant nor selfish. I had failings and short-comings enough, very certainly, among them lack of due meekness and of a wholesome sense of my own inexperience and ignorance and liability to error, but the time never has been when I paltered with conscience, or withheld the expression of whatever I felt to be true or believed important to be said, from fear of man or dread of forfeiting popular favor. I have sometimes doubted since whether this zeal with insufficient knowledge resulted in much practical good; yet perhaps Herbert Spencer's view of cases like mine is the true one, when he says:

"On the part of men eager to rectify

months, when I was in Europe; but I left him a dozen editorials, and sent him a regular weekly arti cle throughout that time.

Orestes A. Brownson, well known since, especially in the Catholic world, then living at Auburn, New York (where he had been editing a Universalist paper), was agent and corresponding editor of our paper for six months (from November, 1829, to May, 1830), but he sent us only two or three articles. one of these he thus defines his creed: "I am no longer to appear as the advocate of any sect nor of any religious faith. . . . Bidding adieu to the regions where the religionist must ramble, casting aside the speculations with which he must amuse himself, I wish to be simply an observer of nature for my creed. and a benefactor of my brethren for my religion."- Free Enquirer, vol. ii. p. 38.