Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/15



Peccavi should be the opening word of many prefaces. A consciousness of much left undone that ought to have been done, and of much done that ought not to have been done, detracts from the pleasure that otherwise might have been felt in passing from one piece of work to another. But the delinquent and offender may at least be heard in his own defense, and state what his object has and has not been.

The object of writing this book has been to discover if possible the advantages and the limitations of the periodical press, especially the newspaper, considered as historical material, and thus to determine the extent of its usefulness to the historian in his efforts to reconstruct the past. It therefore attempts to give an analysis of the component parts of the press, with a sufficient number of examples to illustrate or to justify the conclusions that have been deduced.

It is not the object of the book to give a history, even a fragmentary one, either of the newspaper or of journalism. It is not to be considered a brief for the press, or an indictment of the press, ore a "presentation of both sides of the case"; in a sense, it does not concern itself at all with the press, since the person ultimately in mind has been the student of history. But while it shows the pitfalls the historian must encounter in his use of the newspaper, it may also incidentally indicate how unnecessary has been the alarm constantly raised through the blanket arraignment of the press, and how inherent are the dangers found in the general statement.

The present volume considers the essential characteristics of the newspaper as they affect the historian and as they are made known by the newspaper itself, unaffected by official control. It considers the press only on its esoteric side. If in the discussion of the relations of the newspaper and the historian the newspaper has occupied the foreground, it is hoped that it will be found that all lines have converged on the historian in the background.