Well, the literary class has had its declaration of independence. An author has long ceased to need a patron, and he is in little danger of the law of libel. The question occurs: What are the qualities by which we should justify our independence? Have we not still a certain stoop of the shoulders, a kind of traditional shamefacedness, an awkwardness of manner, and a tendency to blush and stammer, which shows that we are not quite at ease in our new position? Or have we not--it is a more serious question--exchanged dependence upon the great for dependence upon the public, rather than learnt to stand upon our own feet? Have we made ourselves, and, if we have not, how can we make ourselves, worthy of our position as free men? We boast that the Press does part of what used to be done by the priesthood, that we enlighten and encourage and purify public opinion. There is a whole class which depends upon us for intellectual culture; which reads nothing that is not in newspapers and magazines. Do we give them a wholesome training, provide them with sound knowledge, and stimulate them to real thought? Are we such a priesthood as is really raising the standard of human life; or such a priesthood as is clinging to power by echoing the superstitions of its congregations? Nature is ruled by obeying her; and what is called ruling public opinion is too often servilely following its dictates. There is an old story which tells how a certain newspaper used to send out an emissary to discover what was the common remark that every one was making in omnibuses and club smoking-rooms, and to fashion it into next morning's article for the instruction of mankind. The echo affected to set the tune which it really repeated. Now, there is nothing more flattering than an echo. "This must be an inspired teacher, for he says exactly what I thought myself," is a very common and effective argument. To reproduce the opinions of the average reader; to dress them so skilfully that he will be pleased to see what keen intelligence is implied in holding such opinions; to say just what everybody wishes to have said a little more neatly than everybody could say it, or, at the outside, to say to-day what every one will be saying to-morrow, is one path to success in journalism. There is, I am afraid, much so-called education which tends to nothing better than a development of this art. I was consulted the other day by a young gentleman who was proposing to put himself under a professor of journalism. So far as I could gather from his account, the professor did not suggest that the pupil should study any branch of serious knowledge: that he should become, for example, a good political economist, or read ancient or modern history, or make himself familiar with continental affairs or bimetallism, or other thorny and complex subjects. The aim was precisely to enable him to dispense with all study, and to spin words out of absolute mental vacuity.