The newspaper is potentially an instrument of incalculable good. No other influence upon the minds and morals of the people is so continuous and universal. Through the newspapers knowledge is disseminated, judgment and outlook upon life are crystallized, political and social beliefs are shaped. They might be the means of great social and moral reforms. But so long as they are subject to the struggle for existence which, necessitates their truckling to parties, to advertisers, and to public prejudices and passions, so long their influence will be largely unwholesome. If public opinion cannot force them to a higher moral level in their present status as sources of private profit, they must be published by the State or by trustees of an endowment fund. Municipally owned papers are liable to partisanship and corruption, in their way, and endowed papers to an undue regard for the interests of the class to which the majority of the trustees may belong. But the dangers would probably be far less than are inherent in our present system, where morals have to defer to pocketbooks; and when municipal government in this country is finally ordered in a sensible way, so that corruption is much more difficult and easily detected, the municipal newspaper, run after the "city manager" plan, will probably become universal. F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book III, chap. XI. L. Stephen, Science of Ethics, chap, V, sec. IV. C. F. Dole, Ethics of Progress, part VII, chaps, I, II. E. L. Cabot, Everyday Ethics, chaps. XIX, XX. T. K. Abbott, Kant's Theory of Ethics, Appendix I. Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque, chap. IV. E. Westermarck, Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, chap. XXXI. K. F. Gerould, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 112, p. 454. Ethics of Journalism: H. Holt, Commercialism and Journalism. H. George, Jr, The Menace of Privilege, book VII, chap. I. W. E. Weyl, The New Democracy, chap. IX. Educational Review, vol. 36, p. 121. Atlantic Monthly, vol. 102, p. 441; vol. 105, p. 303; vol. 106, p. 40; vol. 113, p. 289. Forum, vol. 51, p. 565. E. A. Ross, Changing America, chap. VII. North American Review, vol. 190, p. 587. CHAPTER XX CULTURE AND ART THE function of the newspaper, which we have been discussing, is, to a considerable extent, to widen our horizon, to give us new ideas and sympathies, to enrich and brighten our lives; in greater degree, that is the role of the fine arts, and of that wide conversance with beauty and truth that we call culture. Man is not a mere worker, and efficiency is not the only test of value; the pursuit of truth and beauty for its own sake is a legitimate human ideal. But beauty, as we have seen, brings temptations; and even the search for truth may lure a man away from his duty. We must consider, then, how far culture, and its outward expression in art, may rightly claim the time and energies of man. What is the value of culture and art?