George William Curtis, editor of _Harper’s Weekly_, admitting the tremendous influence of the press, voices the sentiment of successful editors everywhere when he says: “If the newspaper is the school of the people, and if upon popular education and intelligence the success and prosperity of popular government depends, there is no function in society which requires more conscience as well as ability.” Evidently newspaper men who amount to anything realize their responsibilities. The press is not “all right,” but it seems as far from wrong as conscience and common sense can make any earthly institution. CHAPTER XVII. THE SCHOOL-ROOM. The late lamented Sam Weller once spoke of a schoolboy, who, having learned the alphabet, wondered whether it was worth going through so much to learn so little. The same reflection has come to millions of Americans as they thought of how much time they had spent in schooling and how little they knew when they got out. There are parts of our vast country where the people are lucky enough to have teachers who know so little about the theories of teaching that they impart to their pupils more information than the law demands. But in the cities and large towns where teaching has been elevated, or more properly speaking, reduced to a science, where the most money is spent on the schools and where the school terms are longest, the prevalence of “how not to do it” is simply appalling. The country boy who goes to school only four or five months in the year knows quite as much as his city cousin who annually has nine or ten months of schooling. What does the city pupil get for the double outlay of time, bad air, back-ache and discipline? As he cannot make any subsequent use of his accumulation of bad air and back-ache, his entire gain over the country boy would seem to be in discipline. What does this discipline do for him in the adult life for which school life is a preparation? Does it make him a better business man? No. If it does, why is it that the majority of business men in our large cities are from the rural districts? A few months ago I happened to be a guest at a dinner party at which more than a dozen men prominent in New York business and professional life came together. A question being asked about a social custom of thirty years before, it gradually transpired that not one of the party had been born or brought up in the city of New York, a city of which all now were permanent citizens. I have told this story to prominent citizens of Chicago, St. Louis and Cincinnati, and in return received long lists of the great men of those cities who came from the country. With some fear and trembling I tried the same story in Boston at a large public dinner, but the man to whom I told it--he was a man who seemed to know everybody’s antecedents--replied that not more than one in ten of Boston’s Brahmans or live business men were born at the Hub.