REVIEWS I05 plicated a development. As a storehouse of facts and as a book of reference the book is invaluable. But Mr. Lee writes as a journalist, not as a historian. The picturesque details of newsgetting, the "beats," the pony expresses, the personal peculiarities of the great editors, improvements in the printing press, and similar themes interest him far more than the significance of the press in our growth as a people. When he touches upon the larger questions he is facile and genial

more »

... r than enlightening. Therefore, when in the last two chapters he discusses "The Period of Social Readjustment" and "Journalism of Today," Mr. Lee presents something like a defense of the modern newspaper, dismissing the charges that it is commercialized and that it suppresses and distorts the news, or refuting them with an easy optimism. It is an optimism which is not shared by many practical newspaper men today. I paraphrase the deliberate judgment of an editorial writer upon one of our larger papers: The social revolution which has already begun in this country will be an accomplished fact long before any intimation of it will be-vouchsafed by our newspapers. The more intelligent young men in journalism are aware of the ineffectiveness of our journals as organs of popular expression and are doing what they can to make the press more responsive to its task. But that certain ominous facts demand frank recognition rather than a complacent and partisan denial is not evident from Mr. Lee's excellent but too amiable work. The author would have done better to make his recent history purely a record of obvious facts and citations of opinions from authority rather than seem to pass in so light and confident a fashion upon problems which no one concerned for the purity and adequacy of our news as a basis for an enlightened public opinion can view without the gravest apprehension. Educational efficiency rests ultimately upon the efficiency of teachers; and this in turn is determined by the character and efficiency of the teacher-training institutions. And now that we are attempting to evaluate the results of education through measurement, and the relative efficacy of the different factors involved in the process, naturally we meet with the two relatively new tasks of devising means and methods This content downloaded from 129.049.005.035 on December 17, 2016 18:13:15 PM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c).