Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/335

Rh would be practically of little value in producing these effects were they not accompanied by correspondingly increased facilities for the diffusion of news. It fails to give an adequate idea of the extent of this influence, to state that two and a half milliard copies of newspapers were circulated in 1882 through the Postal Union, and that only an insignificant proportion of these were carried otherwise than by railroad. Most of these journals being political, the part they have in diffusing political intelligence among the people, who depend almost entirely upon them, and in forming their political culture, may be conceived but can not be measured.

This feature also is attended with disadvantages. The newspapers circulating in all classes of society, the number of persons upon whom the formation of that vague force called public opinion depends has become multiplied many times, and in it many are included who have not the previous knowledge requisite to the formation of an intelligent opinion, or capacity to form a real opinion of their own. Consequently, the quality of public opinion has depreciated. It is more easily led into error, and harder to set right. Furthermore, the rapidity with which the telegraph makes it possible to convey news of all important events—and unimportant ones, too—from all parts of the world to all other parts, has given public opinion a taste and a preference for mere matters of fact. The pressure to learn the latest news is stronger than the desire to know events in their order and connections. Thus interest is rather directed to what is striking and sensational, and, responding to this, the papers give to news of that kind space and conspicuousness out of all proportion to its value. Consequently, we have shallowness of public opinion on the one side, exaggeration and unreliability on the other.

In another aspect, railroads and telegraphs have contributed to the increase of knowledge and the expansion of the ideas and conceptions of the people; indirectly by assisting in the circulation of journals that carry knowledge on all kinds of subjects through all the channels of their circulation, and directly by making it possible for people of moderate means, and inducing them, to travel and observe for themselves things and phenomena abroad. When I was a boy, the journey of about thirty miles to the capital of the province was an event for children and parents, which was talked about and prepared for for weeks beforehand, and required a whole day of traveling. People seldom went beyond the boundaries of the province, except on business, or on the occasion of important festivals, or of death. Now we can travel to the sea-coast or the mountains in the same time, and with hardly more expense than it then took to go the thirty miles, and we eagerly use the opportunity to change our scene, whether it be to improve the health a shade, for mental relaxation, for instruction, or for pleasure. The attendance at baths, the rise of summer resorts and air-cures, and furloughs for all classes of officers, have