Page:A hundred years hence - the expectations of an optimist (IA hundredyearshenc00russrich).pdf/80



, as hardly within the bounds of manageable conjecture, any attempt to follow up the suggestion with which the previous chapter concluded, we can very easily imagine the lines on which newspapers such as we know are likely to develop mechanically. A number of processes already existing in embryo can be shown to be capable of very great extension; and several discoveries which an intelligent anticipation is capable of predicting could, and doubtless will, be applied to journalism.

To foresee the future of the newspaper on what may be called the editorial side is a much more difficult task, because we have here to take into account the influence of the developed and rationalised education of the people, which is certain to demand very great changes. Daily newspapers of the present moment are in a transitional state. It can hardly, I think, be denied that the papers which enjoy more or less the greatest popularity exhibit retrogression in