Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/31

Rh When these Pilgrims landed in America, the great wilderness that was to take centuries to subdue, they had, in the fact of Brewster's apprenticeship and the compact referred to, the germ of the free press and the journalism that was to become a world factor in humanity's development.

It was not until 1639 that the first printing press was imported into this country; even then the settlers were living under such conditions of savagery as England had not known for nearly a thousand years.

Wilderness that it was, these Pilgrims had brought with them very definite ideas, many of them gained during the sojourn in Holland; while in many respects they were still only keeping pace with those of their class in England in intellectual growth, they were far advanced in political thought. A small community of not more than a few thousand was more easily influenced than the population of the thickly settled country whence they came. Such an event, therefore, as the founding of Harvard University and the legacy of Brewster's library, in which there were eight books that he himself had published in Leyden, was bound to have its influence on the intelligent section of the public mind. Not only were those in the colony affected by these and similar evidences of liberal thought, but the character of immigration was affected, as we see from the fact that between 1630 and 1647, one hundred university men came to New England from the continent. Such immigration could not do otherwise than broaden the current.

New England, however, was still a colony under the rule of the mother country, and was still greatly influenced by the thoughts of those Englishmen who had remained on the other side. A second printing press was brought over in 1660. Two years later, with only two