VALUE OF THE NEWSPAPER.

Temuka Leader, Issue 177, 20 September 1879, Page 3

VALUE OF THE NEWSPAPER.

Eveyrthing considered, the newspaper is the best and most available of libraries. The one fact of cheapness is so strongly in its favour as to overbalance the majority of arguments that can be advanced upon the opposite side. It is within the reach of everyone, no matter how poor, and finds an entrance where hooks, as a rule, never can ; it comes weekly, and is read and loaned until actually worn out ; can be caught up if one has hut a moment of tune, some knowledge can he gained, and laid down again without detriment to the sense. A single brief item frequently gives what passages of book-bound matter'would have to be waded through to learn ; for the newspaper is the oißome of the entire world. In the briefest possible space, all that is necessary to the correct understanding of the subject is given—to such perfection has thoart of condensation been brought. The newspapers, with the present facilities fur almost instantly learning what is transpiring in every portion of the habitable globe, is the reflection of the hour equally as much as of past ages. By it the north and the south, the east and-the west, are brought together. We

know of the crashing of the ice and the curling heat of the sun ; we arc with the daring explorist seeking for the North Pole, travel through the jungles of Africa ; have a bird’s eye view of great battles ; sail over every sea ; dive with the whale to its fabulous depths ; are present in the Parliament of Nations ; listen to the last words of an expiring Pope, and take by the hand his successor. A wonderful, concise, most skilfully painted panorama of the affairs of the world is the newspaper ; a map of its busy life ; a faithful reproduction of all its flights and shadows, and at the most nominal cost ; at the merest bagatelle to books even in these days of exceptional cheapness. Week after week the paper comes with all that is rare, new, interesting, and instructive. It is a history of nations in fifty-two volumes; an ever-continued encyclopaedia of trade, science, biography, agriculture, and the arts ; is the “ boiling down” of all hooks into so minute a form that the mind can grasp at a single, glance, and he saved theAvading through ponderous volumes of uninteresting detail—to the great saving of time. It is, in fact, the grandest of all circulating libraries ; the throwing open to the public of all the costly archives of the world. The newspaper of to-day is a perfect oniiorn gatherum. Nothing its notice. Every event of importance is instantly photographed upon its pages. The whispirs breathed in every clime arc caught an S fixed. It is a marvel of inteliig nee ; is the stereoscope of every mind. We in-.-fc hack in wonder at the time when it was not, and human intelligence shudders to think of the barbarism and ignorance, and superstition that would follow the blotting out of this sun of the solar svstem. Not a single word would we sai against hooks. Multiply tlnm as much as possible ; tnere can never he too many ; the world can never have too much light ; hut as the grandest and cheapest and widest circulating medium of intelligence—as libraries for mankind—they can compare with the newspapers. '