Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/53

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the material available after the rejection of what proves to be unauthoritative. The second process involves the interpretation

of the life and interests of a community, of a nation , of an age, as these are unconsciously revealed through the columns and pages of periodical literature . In their use of newspapers and similar materials, McMaster

and von Holst submitted them to all the critical tests necessary to determine their value for their own work, but it was foreign to their purpose to elaborate these principles. The very nature of their work precluded giving their readers an analysis of their

own methods of writing history , although these methods could be reconstructed from the histories themselves. The architect

who plans a house does not give and can not be expected to give his working plans to the passerby who may admire the results

without understanding or even questioning themethods by which

they have been achieved . Yet the working plans may be of value and interest to other architects, and a knowledge of the prin ciples used in developing these working plans is absolutely essen tial to those beginning the study of architecture. What then is the newspaper and to what extent can it serve the histor