who uses the newspaper as a record must at least attempt to
answer it and if convinced that its work falls under all three heads, he may also find it necessary to attempt to apportion the different measure of each.98
In all of these changes in the purpose of the newspaper it has thus seemed to be repeating the experience of the museum of
natural science. This once had as its aim the collection of curiosi ties, monstrosities, and every form of abnormal life, and in their arrangement within the museum formal and artificial principles
were adopted , - birds were mounted on stiff perches, shells were arranged according to the prevailing ideas of what “ looked well,”
and stuffed skins of the larger animals were placed wherever convenience of space demanded . But the museum to -day seeks
whatever represents normal life in its own native locality and
with infinite pains its collections are arranged in the manner natural to them in their own habitat. The public library once had similar methods, arranging its books on its shelves according
to sizes and loaning them out for periods that also corresponded
to their dimensions. The historian himself was once interested in the unusual and even the abnormal, - religious inquisitions, the executions of kings, reigns of terror, filled his pages. To-day his interest lies in the study of normal life, he seeks the typical, not the isolated experiences of the past. 98 The question often asked, " Was The Times of Delane a mirror, a guide, or an initiator? " is answered by Sir Edward Cook, “ it was all three.” Since Delane was independent personally, was independent of the Govern
ment of the day, and was independent of party ties, the answer in this case
is a simpler matter than it sometimes is. See an admirable discussion of the whole subject in Delane of “ The Times," chap. X , “ The Influence of
Delane." A variant of the same question has often been raised in regard to The Nation , and it has been answered by Rollo Odgen who says: “ The Nation ' s infiuence in shaping the American press was out of all proportion to the
mere numbers of its readers . It did not strive nor cry. The effects it wrought were subtle and insinuated , never clamorous. A virtue went out from it which was unconsciously absorbed by many newspaper writers. They
could scarcely have said where they got their new impulse to exercise a judgment independent of party . All can raise the flowers now , for all have
got the seed . To-day the most powerful newspapers in the United States are those which have the reputation of being already ready , on a question
of real principle, to snap the green withes with which politicans would
bind them . But until twenty years after The Nation was founded , how few they were, how sneered at, how disliked !” — Years of American Idealism , p . 81.
Gustav Pollak
