eco the newspaper as an important source in the reconstruction of
the past and in the study of the evolution of the present from that past.
To answer these questions involves an analysis of the news paper into its component parts , an inquiry into the source of the statements of each part, and the application to each of such
tests as will determine the authenticity and the authoritativeness of the various parts considered separately and collectively. If the newspaper stands the tests, some of the justifiable doubts of the historian are answered . But the question of how far the newspaper can be of service
to the historian is but half answered even if it can be determined what parts of the press are presumably reliable and what are the regions where danger lurks. The historian uses the news paper in his effort to reconstruct the life of the past and hemay therefore find both the authoritative and the unauthoritative
parts of value to him ; the authoritative parts are necessary in giving a connected account of past events, while the unauthorita tive parts may be of value in determining ideals and standards, in gauging collective ignorance or intelligence, and interpreting the spirit of a time or of a locality . Not only must tests be applied
to determine how far the statements of the press can be accepted at their face value, but it is equally important to submit the
newspaper to those tests that will determine how far it uncon sciously records, for better or for worse, the interests of the day, how far material that is in itself absolutely and obviously untrue
may yet have value in ascertaining the real conditions of past life . For the historian is concerned not simply with the accounts
of material events, he is equally interested in the interpretation of the spirit of a time or locality . This spirit is revealed both
by the true and by the false accounts given by the press. The numerous advertisements of patent medicines, for example, that were once announced as cures for every ill known to the body or themind are to the historian in themselves wilful attempts to deceive an ignorant public, and while obviously false they are records of the baser elements in men ; of the proneness of the
ignorant to grasp at straws; of the general lack of information
in regard to hygiene, sanitation, and the general welfare of
