The development of the press, like the improvement of the means of civilization, is a certain sign of the relative advancement of a nation. We use the term civilization here to signify not so much the development of some elevated and delicate parts of human nature, such as art, philosophy, or politeness, as that of political liberty and social progress; and in this sense the progress of the press becomes historically the most constant and faithful indication of the general progress of a nation. The truth of this proposition becomes evident, from the close connection that exists between the press and the public, from the action and reaction, the efflux and reflux, from the true corporate unity which brings into the press the life-blood of the country. We depend upon the newspaper for distributing knowledge, as well as creating it; it is an instrument by which the opinions and feelings of the people may be guided and developed, as well as communicated and ascertained. It is in fact an essential element in the peculiar spirit and tendency which characterizes our modern civilization. Still we are far from holding that it is a perfect instrument, or free from very serious drawbacks. Eminent men like Lamartine speak of it in terms of extravagant eulogy, predicting that before the century shall have run out journalism will be the whole press, the whole human thought, and that the only book possible from day to day will be the newspaper; a great English novelist speaks of it as a link in the great chain of miracles which prove our national greatness; and Bulwer Lytton calls it the chronicle of civilization, the great mental camera which throws a picture of the whole world upon a single sheet of paper. These somewhat rhetorical representations are very common, but they are far from exact or truthful. We suspect that the newspaper tends in all countries to ignore, more or less, all knowledge that will not render its teaching popular; that its chief figures are often the wicked, the worthless, and the shallow; and that its pictures, though generally faithful, are often false, distorted, and narrow. De Tocqueville liked the liberty of the press, rather from the evils it prevented, than from the advantages it created; and Montalembert represents Liberty as saying to the Press, like the unhappy swain--'_Nec cum te nec sine te vivere possum_.' John Stuart Mill has two objects of hatred; Puritanism, with its positive creed and aggressive zeal, and the ascendancy of the middle classes, through the newspaper press, with all their mediocrity and bigotry. He has always protested, in the interests of his great idol, individuality, against 'the _régime_ of public opinion,' against the various 'usurpations upon the liberty of private life,' against the moral intolerance of society, carried on through, the newspapers. Amidst these various estimates of the press we are disposed to take a middle course. It may sometimes be wielded by unworthy hands,