Page:Japan by the Japanese (1904).djvu/590

In gauging the degree of progress in civilization attained by a people, there is, I believe, no guide so sure and reliable as its public press. The press is a faithful mirror of the life of a people in its manifold aspects. The press may be bad, or it may be good, but it cannot be much worse or much better than the people among whom it exists.

There are men and women who denounce the press of their country, or a section of it, and say hard things about the poor drudges of the editorial room, quite forgetting that they are all the time giving substantial encouragement and instigation to these editors by purchasing, and even enjoying, the abominable productions of their pens. So, in the last analysis, it is not the editor, but the general public, that makes the press. I do not say this in defence of the yellow journals—we have enough of them and to spare; all I want to say is that the press of a country is the best and surest indication of the advance made by its people in culture, manners, and all other things that go into the make-up of the mixed product we call civilization.

In Japan the press has become for good or for evil a great power, and has really attained to the rank of the fourth estate in the land. Its personnel has contained, and still contains, some of the most intellectual men, while several Ministers of State and many leading politicians have gained their early experience on newspapers. It may even be said that in Japan the press serves as a nursery for statesmen.

The origin of newspapers in Japan dates back to very early times. The Chinese boast of the possession of the oldest existing newspaper in the world—their Metropolitan Gazette (the Kin-Pao), which is still published in Peking, being nearly 400 years old. If we cannot claim quite the same sort of distinction, we can still claim for our journalism a history of which we need