The editorials of our journals seem to me better than formerly, improved
in tone, in courtesy, in self-respect,--though you may not have to go far
or search long for the provincial note and the easy grace of the
frontier,--and they are better written. This is because the newspaper has
become more profitable, and is able to pay for talent, and has attracted
to it educated young men. There is a sort of editorial ability, of
facility, of force, that can only be acquired by practice and in the
newspaper office: no school can ever teach it; but the young editor who
has a broad basis of general education, of information in history,
political economy, the classics, and polite literature, has an immense
advantage over the man who has merely practical experience. For the
editorial, if it is to hold its place, must be more and more the product
of information, culture, and reflection, as well as of sagacity and
alertness. Ignorance of foreign affairs, and of economic science, the
American people have in times past winked at; but they will not always
wink at it.
It is the belief of some shrewd observers that editorials, the long
editorials, are not much read, except by editors themselves. A cynic says
that, if you have a secret you are very anxious to keep from the female
portion of the population, the safest place to put it is in an editorial.
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