by Mrs. Leman Gillies [Mary Grimstone].
Originally published in Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Magazine (Punch) vol.3 #15 (Mar 1846).
The progress of literature, and the improvement of the people, have run like parallel streams; when the current of the one has been impeded, the course of the other has flagged. The people may regard the press as having given them a second birth: it has infused soul into their civil life. The first newspaper, looking back upon it as I do now, as the first seed of the giant tree which is spreading its wide arms over the length and breadth of the land,—the appearance of that newspaper is an epoch in history. It belongs, I need scarcely say, to the time of Elizabeth, that star-chamber dame, who little thought what work such prints would one day make among the descendants of her loyal lieges. At the eventful period of the Spanish Armada, when the transmission and diffusion of intelligence regarding the important movements of the time was matter of great interest, "The English Mercurie" was issued. Many of these papers, bearing the date of 1588, and printed while the Spanish fleet was in the channel, may be seen at the British Museum. The Commonwealth, was prolific of periodicals, but they were devoted to mere party purposes, and were full of the scurrility and malignity of minds antagonised at all points on matters of politics and religion. The same remark may apply to the first daily paper after the Revolution, "The Orange Intelligencer." The dark background of that period may serve to throw out in high relief the freedom of the present day. At that time, none of tho proceedings of parliament were permitted publicity except upon authority. The progress of journalizing was not, however, rapid; for in the reign of Queen Anne, London had but one daily paper—if such was the feast in the metropolis, what must have been the famine in the provinces! How dormant lay the popular energies—crude diamonds, encrusted and embedded in the unopened, unsuspected mine! How barren the soil over which the plough had never passed to turn its virgin bosom to the fertilizing sunshine—how worse than barren was it, yielding rank crops of weeds—prejudices, superstitions, brutalisms,—the sad remains of which are fast flying before the steam-press and the steam-engine. The days of Steele and Addison stirred the waters with the magician's wand; but though it thus spread, circle after circle, it was far from reaching those classes which are now daily giving evidence of high intellect, notwithstanding all that weary toil and various injuries from ill-divided wealth inflicts upon them. By 1724, London had three daily papers, besides several that were published weekly. Gradually the power of the press advanced, and in 1731 brought in the "Gentleman's Magazine," that parent of an endless progeny of periodicals, which have-since found consumers and contributors from classes which at the time in question must have been the very pariahs of knowledge; for Johnson: says, speaking of that period; "that men not professing learning were not ashamed of ignorance, and in the female world, any acquaintance with Hooks was distinguished only to be censured."
The mass of the people were not only ignorant, but they had not the least ides that they might be, that they ought to be, otherwise—the divine light lay unkindled in unconscious breasts; and "if the light within thee be darkness, how great is that darkness." At that time, too, and long after, the privileged classes were full of alarms at the mere idea of educating the poor. Plato's republic and More's Utopia were not held to be half so fallacious. Books; pictures; statues, which a fostering patronage might have called from national genius, like coins from the mint, were prohibited, as calculated to mislead the multitude, withdraw them from their prescribed province, and was, in effect, deemed to be "casting pearls before the swine."
Shall we not rejoice that these days are past? Shall we not look back more in pity than in resentment on that shortsighted selfishness, that could thus attempt to say to the tide of human progression, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther?"—which could attempt to set up barriers against that approaching tide which have proved as feeble as the premises on which they were built were false?" It is now fairly a race between the classes; and I fancy that the energetic sons of the people, such as can write "The Suicide's Purgatory," and "The Baron's Yule," with the few hours that they wring from toil; or snatch from rest, will outrun the college-taught and castle-sheltered sons of fortune. When we talk of the friends of the people, let us remember Joseph Lancaster, the Pestalozzi of England, the much-tried and untiring friend of the education of the people. I shall perhaps revert to him some future time; I will now only pause to recall a circumstance equally honourable to him and the class to whose service he devoted himself. Like all who engage in great schemes of improvement, he became, embarrassed; but on examination into the circumstances; it was found that his embarrassment had arisen from no selfish or improper expenditure of fonds; that, in fact, himself and family very rarely tasted animal food, but subsisted principally upon bread and milk. Among the debts there was a very considerable one to a baker, (Honour to his name! I would I were able to proclaim it.) When some-one expressed surprise that he should have given such large credit, he answered, "The good Mr. Lancaster had done to the poor of his neighbourhood is such, that, as long as I have a loaf, he shall have half of it." I will not add another word. I have presented a point of view which ¢alls for silent contemplation.