17
In all this there is nothing impossible, nothing millennial. But what has been outlined of the work of the true book reporter is as far as possible from what we very generally get to-day. We get unthinking praise and unthinking condemnation; we do not expect analysis but we have a right to expect straightaway exposition and a condensed transliteration of the book being dealt with.
“Praise,” we have just said, and “condemnation.” That is what it is, and there is no room in the book reporter’s task either for praise or condemnation. He is not there to praise the book any more than a man is at a political convention to praise a nominating speech; he is there to describe the book, to describe the speech, to report either. A newspaperman who should begin his account of a meeting in this fashion, “In a lamentably poor speech, showing evidences of hasty preparation, Elihu Root,” &c., would be fired—and ought to be. No matter if a majority of those who heard Mr. Root thought the same way about it.