, for the child comes into contact
with many types of people, with a great variety of social
institutions, and with all sorts of activities. It is these
advantages, together with the higher institutions for study, that
attract hundreds and sometimes thousands of students to the prominent
social centres. The colleges and universities, the normal schools, the
music and art institutes and lecture systems are numerous and attract
correspondingly.

293. =The Press as an Educator.=--The institutions directly concerned
with instruction are supplemented by other educational agencies. Among
these is the press. The press is an institution that exerts a mighty
force upon every department of the city's life. It is at the same time
a business enterprise and a social institution. It is a public
misfortune that the newspaper, the magazine, and the book publishing
house is a private business undertaking, and often stands for class,
party, or sectarian interests before those of the whole of society.
There is always a temptation to sacrifice principle to policy, to
publish distorted or half-true statements from selfish interest, and
to prostitute influence to individuals or groups that care little for
the public welfare. The publication of a statement or narrative of a
crime or other misdemeanor tends by suggestion to the imitation of the
wrong by others; it is a well-known fact that a sensational story of
suicide or murder is likely to provoke others in the same manner. It
is a grave question whether the realistic fiction so much in vogue and
published in such quantities is not a baneful text-book on modern
society. But when it chooses the press becomes an instrument of
immense value to the public. It can turn the light of publicity on
dark and dirty places. It can and does provide a means of wise
utterance on questions of the day. It keeps a record of the good as
well as the evil that is done. It is a means of communication between
local groups everywhere, for it publishes what everybody wants to know
about everybody else. It introduces the antipodes to each other, and
makes it possible for far-sundered groups to unite even
internationally for a good cause. As the railroad binds together
portions of a continent, so the press links the minds of human beings.

294. =A Metropolitan Newspaper.=--Take a metropolitan newspaper and
see how it reflects the current life of society. Economic interests of
buyer and seller are exploited in the a