general among us for the recognition of symptoms.

This then was the mental attitude with which I approached my duties as a
reporter on the staff of a London daily newspaper of old standing and
good progressive traditions. And my notion was that in every line
written for publication, the end of social reform should be served,
directly or indirectly. My idea of attaining social reformation was
that the people must be taught, urged, spurred into extracting further
gifts from the State; that the public must be shown how to make their
lives easier by getting the State to do more for them. That was as much
as my education and my expansive theorizing had done for me. Assuredly I
was a product of my age.

I had forgotten one thing, however, and that was the thing which Mr.
Charles N. Pierce began now to drill into me, by analogy, and with a
good deal more precision and directness than I had ever seen used at
Rugby or Cambridge. This one thing was that the _Daily Gazette_ was not
a philanthropic organ, but a people's paper; and that the people did not
want instructing but interesting.

"But," I pleaded, "surely, for their own sakes, in their own
interests----"

"Damn their own sakes!"

"Well, but----"

"There's no 'but' about it. The public is an aggregation of individuals.
This paper must interest the individual. The individual doesn't care a
damn about the people. He cares about himself. He is very busy making
money, and when he opens his paper he wants to be amused and interested;
and he is not either interested or amused by any instruction as to how
the people may be served. He doesn't want 'em served. He wants himself
served and amused. That's your job."

I believe I had faint inclinations just then to wonder whether, after
all, there might not be something to be said for the bloated Tories:
the opponents of progress, as I always considered them. My thoughts ran
on parties, in the old-fashioned style, you see. Also I was thinking, as
a journalist, of the characteristics which distinguished different
newspapers.

I cordially hated Mr. Charles N. Pierce, but he really had more
discernment than I had, for he said:

"Don't you worry about teaching the people to grab more from the State.
They'll take fast enough; they'll take quite as much as is good for 'em,
without your assistance. But, for giving, the angel Gabriel and two
advertisement canvassers wouldn't make 'em give a cent more than they're
obliged."