editorials that have appeared since about 1880 and that give promise of being of permanent value from the nature of the subjects treated. Collected from the editorial columns of the press of different countries, they attest the permanent value as literature of much that appeared first in the so-called "ephemeral press."[1]
The editorial not only covers a wider range of subjects than ever before but it discusses them with a breadth and depth not known in the earlier editorial. This has been particularly noticeable during the recent war where the constant comparison between present and past conditions has been possible only because of the fund of exact information at command.[2] This information is made possible in part through the establishment in all great newspaper offices of special libraries under the care of trained librarians. It was considered noteworthy that the Boston Daily Advertiser in the time of Nathan Hale had command of a complete file of the London Times and of other important English,
- ↑ Many editorials have been collected by different journals and published collectively:—Essays from the London Times, 2 vols., 1852; Mornings of the Recess, from the London Times, 1861–64; Casual Essays of the Sun; Seen by the Spectator, The Outlook; College Journalism, J. Bruce, and J. V. Forrestal, eds.
One of the earliest, if not the first, of these republications was made in the latter part of the seventeenth century. John Dunton, his brother-in-law, Samuel Wesley (the father of John Wesley), and Richard Sault published the Athenian Mercury from March, 1691 until June, 1697. Dunton published in four volumes a selection from these Mercuries and issued it as the Athenian Oracle. John Underhill has recently collected into one volume "all that is most interesting and valuable in the four volumes of the Athenian Oracle." See introduction to the volume.
The counterpart of this is found in the practice of leading editors of collecting their own most important editorials:—E. L. Godkin, Critical and Social Essays; George Williams Curtis, Ars Recte Vivendi; Fabian Franklin, People and Problems; A. G. Gardiner, Pillars of Society; and Prophets, Priests and Kings.
These titles are but suggestive and illustrative of the very large number of works of this character.
- ↑ The New York Times, for example, compared the surprise victory of the British at Cambrai with the surprise victory of Stonewall Jackson over Hooker at Chancellorsville , "which has hitherto stood as a model."—December 3, 1917.
A mass of material on this point may be found in The War from This Side,—two volumes of editorials collected from the Philadelphia North American, July, 1914–July, 1916; The Gravest 366 Days, editorials collected from the New York Evening Mail, 1916; E. S. Martin, The Diary of a Nation, 1917; A. G. Gardiner, War Lords; and in numerous other volumes of collected editorials.
