The Americans are prone to throw in our teeth that we are led by the “Times,� and form no opinion for ourselves; but they forget that our faith in the practical essays of that journal is not the result of a blind adherence to custom, but of the confidence that, among the rational, will ever cling to opinions that are seldom proved, under the strongest test, to be fallacious. Socially, the “Times� is our expounder and monitor, and if, in this respect, it leads us, it leads us by conviction, as we should be led, and when you hear a man say that “he doesn’t care what the ‘Times’ says on this or that subject,� he is generally one not open to conviction, or not sufficiently noble to surrender to it his own false impressions. In political matters the “Times� may be strategical, as great statesmen have been.
The press of England has not hitherto been widely disseminated among the working classes (fault we will say of their narrow means and education) nor were it so, would they, as in America, be so influenced politically by its tone; but that which is disseminated either takes its tone from the “Times,â€� so far as to echo weekly the strictures which that journal passes on our home abuses, or otherwise is conducted in the same spirit. Therefore there is an unanimity of opinion in the English press, and as its expositions are by no means flattering, as a general rule, to the public, and meet no contradiction, we may presume, from that fact alone, that the principles it inculcates on these matters are sound. Putting aside the slave question, the great proportion of the American press by no means devotes itself to the exposure of abuses: in the first place, the Americans are not fond of having their faults pointed out, and an editor is naturally anxious to place before his readers only what is palatable. Therefore the press declines to admonish, and following no just and truthful leader, each provincial journal disseminates its own doctrine, whatever that may be; and thus, in a country where all read, the press exercises its power to excite the passions, but seldom to control them. For instance, at the time I write the press of California upholds strongly the doctrine of forcible annexation; some of these journals inform the public (many of whom, by the way, are ripe for novel enterprise) that the Sandwich Islands must become subject to the United States; whilst the more ambitious point to Mexico on one side, and British Oregon on the other—undecided only, which first should bow to American rule. The higher classes, it will be said, disregard these “fillibusteringâ€� doctrines; but of the 200,000 souls in California how large a proportion does not foster them until a spirit is diffused that can never be countenanced even by the warmest admirers of the “Munro Doctrine.â€�
For although one may admit it to be probable that in time the American people will add to their dominions the Sandwich Islands and the sickly independencies of South America, they will do so, it is to be hoped, only as becomes a great nation, and not through piracy or intimidation. In fact, to sum up, I think a great part of the press of the United States studies the foibles of the people instead of correcting them, when they most need correction, which leads to this result, that the Americans hear of their faults through the press of other countries, and attribute those strictures to a feeling of injustice and envy.
An American gentleman of great intelligence assured me that the good feeling which now exists (and I trust ever will) between the two countries, would have been induced long previous had the “Times� (I use his own expression) been less silent on the subject of America.
“What,� he asked, “did your leading journal ever say in our favour fifteen years ago, when this country was making the most unexampled strides towards prosperity? Were we ever written of but with an open allusion to the Pennsylvanian debt? Was anything connected with us thought worthy of record but our steam-boat explosions and Lynch law?�
There is great truth in this—the press of Europe has treated America until latterly with silence if not contempt, and it is no wonder that the Americans, who are the first to feel a slight, should retain some bitterness on this score.
But this has passed away, the superficial travels of prejudiced Englishmen (and women) no longer regulate our judgment of this country, which indeed, even if their views were correct, has long outgrown, in its rapid prosperity, the features they depicted.
The American newspapers are conducted with talent, and warmly encourage and keep alive the spirit of energy and progress, from which the country’s greatness springs; their moral tone generally is good, and the amount of useful information they disseminate renders them of great value to the greater proportion of readers; but it is to be deplored that so many are connected with the press, whose feelings prompt them to keep alive a jealousy and hatred of the mother country. The best of us need at times to have the scales removed from our eyes, and the fallacies we hug so stubbornly must be made to fall before conviction. Therefore, with so large a mass of readers of the lower class dependent almost on the press for information; among a people of warm blood and quick impulses, but a people, whom it is as easy to mould to think calmly and dispassionately as to inflame and excite until the judgment falls before the power of doctrines flattering to national vanity; is it not to be lamented that that portion of the press to which the bone and sinew of the country looks naturally for guidance and advice, should in few instances be directed by a wise and sound policy, principally from the absence of leading journals sufficiently courageous to chastise?
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There is nothing more pleasant than to revert to the good traits of a country, particularly after having recorded what in one’s judgment appears an infirmity. I allude therefore with pleasure to the educational system of the Americans, honourable as it is to the good feeling of the country, although it must be remembered I am speaking of the Americans as colonists. The base of the American system of education is simply to educate everybody, and to develope the natural faculties; thus the way is opened to all to raise themselves by assiduity and talent to independence and mayhap renown. How is it that great and wise countries in the matter of education discuss so much and so idly the manner of the doing; leaving the patient unrelieved whilst the wise doctors disagree? Or how is it that it requires a Bishop and his staff to plant a school in certain colonies, and why is so much fuss made about the matter when the Bishop comes home and informs the public, as bishops always do at some meeting or other, of the glorious success that has attended his labours, and how he has called together twenty-five small Carribean children in a wooden building forty feet by twelve, as if a sacrifice had been offered up to Heaven, the incense of which should diffuse itself gratefully over the whole land?