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Show THE NEWSPAPER AS AS EDUCATOR. EDUCA-TOR. There was a time, in the days of puritanic and tlue-nosed Presbyterian views and prejudices, when the newspaper news-paper was looked upon by many as little lit-tle better than a secuiar abomination a devi.-e of worlilly-minded men t draw away the thoughts of their f llow-mortal.-, to tilings of vanity and wickedness. wicked-ness. In those days good Master Pound-the-Bible would Lave al'otteo an extra quantity of blazing brimstone, and the hottest corner of inferno, to the godless wretch who would havi dared to open the uiiaanctiSed newspaper news-paper on a Sunday. But the world grows; all classes now read the newspaper: news-paper: and on this Sunday morninf we pre-ent some of its claims to be considered an educator, to our readers. A well conducted newspaper is an cpito no of current history, a reflex ol the times, n compendium of genera and useful knowledge, and a frainer and director of public opinion. The man who does not lead a newspaper i:-the i:-the inhabitant of a world far behind the buy, bustling one around us in practical knowledge. He is behind the age. lie may hare read history until he can run through the mutation.' muta-tion.' of empires, and tell you when nations rose to the zenith of their glory or sunk iu the fathomless and shoreless ocean of the mighty past ; but he dues not know the history of the day in which he is a living, breathing, breath-ing, acting participant. He may be able to tell of Alexander's glories, of Caisar's victories, ofXenopbon's retreat re-treat ; yet be is ignorant of the situi-tion situi-tion before Paris ; does not know but Napoleon is at the head of the French army, and King William retreating before be-fore him to Berlin ; or probably is ignorant ig-norant that war rages in Europe at all, unless by hearing a neighbor speak of it. The movements of natious, the march of events, the progress made in science and art, in short the scenes and events transpiring over the earth are comparatively sealed mysteries to him. A general desire prevails to have the rising generation educated, but education educa-tion does not consist alone in a knowledge know-ledge of books. True education comprises com-prises the acquisition of all useful knowledge, and first of that which mankind can make applicable to their comfort, happiness and progrc-s. A learned savant, whose life had been spent in seclusion paring over musty tomes until his brain bent beneath the weight of borrowed information committed com-mitted to memory, would be a perfect ignoramus as a pioneer or a frontiersman, frontiers-man, who had to gain a subsistence and preserve life with the exercise of skill gained by experience and know ledge acquired by years of train ng and suffering. Let the young be taught to have a comprehension of the world as it is not the foulness of iu crimes and the mysteries of its corruptions, but the history of to-day ; and let them have before them the eudless cyclopedia of facts, truths, ideas, and general knowledge knowl-edge which the newspaper brings. There is no better work in which to train the student in reading, for none has so many and such varied styles of composition. There is no book its equal in giving a faithful account of the workings of the human mind by practical illustration, for it constantly contains a collection of current facts, gathered from all parts of the world, which show what mankind do that is strange and startling, or wonderfully good and elevating ; and this not the effort of imagination drawing colored sketches of what might bo, but daily occurrences, bringing almost the congregated con-gregated actions of a world within the compass of an hour's time and before the eyes of a few individuals or hundreds hun-dreds of thousands, as the broad sheet is circulated and read. The newspaper is an educator tor young and old, second to none produced pro-duced by the printer's art, superior as a means of education to any single secular sec-ular book ever produced ; forming the minds of millions, swaying the destinies desti-nies of nations, and leading mankind on to marked changes and new eras, f.jr good oi evil, as its influence is exerted. Who can treat it lightly ! -' |
