There is at least an aristocracy of mind, to which neither gold nor title can give admission, but only kinship of spirit, smitten with the love of high thinking. What Tennyson has written of a different union may be applied to that of mind with mind: “Yet it shall be, thou shalt lower to his level day by day, What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathize with clay. As the husband is, the wife is; thou art mated with a clown, And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.” Allow me, in this connection, to say a word of periodical literature. A book can wait for success; the best books have not been understood by the generation for which they were written; but a newspaper or magazine must succeed at once, or fail utterly, since its life is necessarily ephemeral. Hence the great probability is that it will be guided, not by principle, but by policy; that it will aim, not to uphold truth, but to flatter the prejudices of its readers. If it is the organ of a party, it must defend its interests blindly; and hence, whenever argument is attempted, it will be found to consist of little else than special pleading and sophistry. But since the average newspaper‐reader is not fond of logic, the partisan organ will deal rather with men than with principles; and the whole basis of this procedure is double‐ dealing—untruth erected into the dignity of a principle. Its business will be to whitewash its friends, and besmear its enemies. When its party is out of office, it will swell with indignation at the public corruption, and will use what are called the argus eyes of the press to discover things which do not exist; but when the spoils are in the hands of its friends, it will devote itself to covering up their misdeeds. There is also what is called the independent press, which generally has less of principle than that which is avowedly partisan. It in turn affirms and denies everything, plays fast and loose, palters in a double sense, and, with a seeming honesty, is most unfair, lending all its influence to persuade men that there is no such thing as truth, and that morality is only cant. There are yet other heads of indictment that may be brought, without injustice, against the press. Its columns are filled with details, more or less minute, of all the horrible and disgusting crimes which disgrace society, with sins against the decencies of life, with coarse personalities, and advertisements which are an opprobrium to human nature. This, I must confess, is a one‐sided view of the question; it is, however, the view which my subject forces me to take in treating of the means of self‐education.