is far beyond all that could have been anticipated when the
presses close, the papers have passed into the hands of their readers , and have then been cast aside as having served their purpose . The suggestions that have been made of its ultimate value to the historian through the infinite range of reconstruc
tions of past time made possible by the press have presupposed a press under normal conditions. A press regulated or censored by authority , a press under governmental control, a press used by governments to promulgate its special doctrines is not a free press, and a society reconstructed from a press thus limited by external conditions is but a caricature of what should be a normal society. For this study of normal life the newspaper, - abnormal as it itself may seem
with flaring headlines and blurred pages of
illustrated advertisements , with all of its limitations, its inac curacies , its unworthy representatives , its lack of proportion , its many temptations not always resisted — to throw prismatic colors instead of the white light of truth on its accounts of the
day, the periodical press still remains the most important single source the historian has at his command for the reconstruction of the life of the past three centuries.
APPENDIX I
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES * NAME
BORN
DIED
OCCUPATION
A 'BECKETT, A . W . ABERDEEN , G . H . GORDON , Earl of ACTON , Sir J . E ., first Baron ADAM , H . Pearl (Mrs. George)
1844 1909 humorist 1784 1860 statesman 1834 1902 historian 1882 journalist
ADAM , Juliette
ADAMS, F . P.
1836 1868
ADAMS, Henry
1838
ADAMS, S . H .
1871
ADAMSON , Robert
1871 editor, writer 1837 1908 author , journalist 1836 1907 author , editor 1876 university professor 1758 1808 statesman 1874 author and special corre
ALDEN , W . L . ALDRICH , T . B . AMBLER , C . H .
AMES, Fisher ANGELL, Norman
editor
1918
columnist historian author
spondent
ARCHER , William ARNOLD , Matthew ARNOLD , Thomas
