Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/61

PUBLIC OPINION 47 enjoys much the same advantages and suffers from the same limitations. The same causes which have favored conversation—increase of leisure, unification of language, diffusion of common knowledge, equalization of rank—have contributed to render correspondence more active, but under special conditions which affect this alone, viz:, travel, which renders absence more frequent; popularization of the art of writing and a reasonably good postal service. The press, however, which has stimulated and nourished conversation has destroyed many of the sources of correspondence. One is not nowadays inclined to sit down and write his friend a long letter detailing the news of his city, accompanied with his own comments and views, as was the custom in the eighteenth century. He knows that his friend will already have read the news in his morning paper and have had the benefit of the editor's comment, which is likely to be more interesting and valuable than anything that he can write. Mr, Bryce has also suggested that the very cheap postage which we enjoy today, and the practice of prepayment by means of stamps, while increasing the volume of correspondence a thousand fold, has, perhaps for that very reason, diminished its worth as an organ of public opinion. When one knew that his friend must pay a shilling upon receipt of the letter which he was writing, he would take pains to make the epistle worth the price. With the cheapening of the postage to a penny, the contents have lost their value at the same ratio. With the urbanization of modern life the number of our friends and acquaintances has greatly increased, while the intimacy which characterized the friendships of the time of Doctor Johnson has certainly diminished. What we have to say now addresses itself less and less to individuals and more to groups of increasing size. Our real correspondent is becoming more and more the public. Letter-writing is giving place to an instrumentality better fitted to the wider audience.

Just as books grew out of the monologue or discourse, so journalism is a development of conversation and correspondence.