and well-directed expenditure, will accomplish such a deside

ratum, it shall be accomplished.

we await the result.

With confident expectation,

Columbus, Ohio, March 15, 1851.

EDITOR OF MAGAZINE.

Western Literary Magazine.

INTRODUCTION.

Original.

BY THE EDITOR.

THE PRESS is an engine of mighty power. That power is not physical, but intellectual and moral. Its extent for good or for evil is incalculable. Not upon frail paper and with type and ink merely are its impressions made; for then would they be comparatively evanescent, but upon mind, and are, therefore, more durable than monuments of brass or adamant more durable than the pillars of the solid globe-yea, more durable even than any mere perishable substance in the universe.

Vast, then, beyond computation or even conception, must be the responsibility of those who undertake the control of that Press and those impressions. The vastness of that responsibility is, however, we fear, not duly considered and appreciated by very many who assume such a control, if we may be permitted to judge from the character and influence of that tide of periodical, or "light literature," as it is sometimes called, which has flowed, in a wide, and broad, and deep Mississippi flood, over the mass of youthful mind within the last ten or fifteen years, sweeping away in its swollen and turbid course many of the old landmarks of virtue and propriety, and leaving its black and polluting sediment upon the soil. Quite as beneficially employed would some of them have been, had they collected together all the serpents' eggs from the sands of the great African desert, and been engaged in the very laudable vocation of

hatching them out by some forcing process of Yankee invention, and sending forth through community a venomous and hissing brood of young vipers, rattlesnakes, and anacondas, to be companions of our youth, and to sport with them in their hours of recreation.

This, we are aware, is strong language, but yet we believe it to be perfectly justifiable :- for we hazard nothing in asserting that a very large proportion of that light reading matter, to which we have referred, has been the most worthless trash that ever emanated from the muddled brains of love-sick, moon-struck scribblers-without the merit of scarcely an exhibition of either natural or acquired ability without the slightest tincture of sound morality-without solidity or substance with very little more method than is discernable in the incoherent ravings of stark madness—without even skill in the grammatical and rhetorical construction of language, and choice of phraseology to recommend it to favorable attention literature almost as ephemeral in its existence, as

"The insect swarm,

Which sports in the sunbeam, but dies in the storm."

a

A literature, scarcely a sentiment or a line of which contains within itself the vivifying principle of immortalization to perpetuate its being beyond that of the frail paper upon which its typographical impressions are made- and yet, a literature, ephemeral as it is in the library or upon the shelf of the bookseller, that makes, nevertheless, its impressions upon mind, during its brief existence, which not only can never be erased, without almost a miracle, but must continue and deepen, when their producing cause shall have sunk, in all its inherent worthlessness, into the deep, dark grave of a deserved oblivion, from which there never will be a resurrection.

Were those mental impressions as short-lived as the typographical impressions upon paper of the worthless trash which was read and produced them, no material and permanent damage would have been the consequence. The mischief has not, however, died with its cause. It has lived, still lives, and will continue to live in all its ten thousand degrading and demoralizing effects, long after the cause which produced it, has been swept away by scavengers into the sewer

to moulder and rot with other filthy and loathsome rubbish. It has lived, lives still, and will continue to live in the vitiated mental and moral tastes of very many of the youth-in a diseased and morbid imagination which is productive of a vast variety of optical delusions, and which gives to almost every object of sight or contemplation an appearance very different from reality—which regards truths as fictions, and fictions as truths, and totally unfits those who are under its influence, for the sober and beneficial discharge of the duties of life.

Now, to displace as much as possible such a literature, the direct influence of which is to undermine the foundation of all that is exalted and noble and praiseworthy in either character or in institutions to counteract its past deleteriousness, and limit its future — to bring fact and argument to bear upon it-to expose its rotten and disgusting worthlessness to the concentrated and withering scorn of a high-toned patriotism and lofty-mindedness to furnish a journal to whose introduction to the parlor circle or social fireside, no parent, however fastidious, can object- to foster a correct taste in the mass of educated and uneducated mind, upon the subject of science, literature, and morals, wherever access can be had to that mind-to rouse the dormant energies of the young, and direct those energies into the right channel to furnish an ever ready and willing auxiliary to aid the teacher and the parent in their efforts to train properly the rising generation, and diffuse the blessings of correct intelligence within the sphere of its influence, are the prominent motives which impel us in the publication of a monthly periodical, entitled " The Western Literary Magazine and Journal of Education, Science, Arts, and Morals." Whether we succeed to the extent of our desires and

anticipations, remains to be seen. Of our ability to accomplish these ends, we are diffident. Upon that, however, we shall not mainly rely. We shall associate with us in the enterprise some of the best talent of the West, and then, under the steady, pole-star guidance of good intentions, we hope to accomplish at least something of importance for the benefit of our race - which should be the object of every such undertaking.

This Journal will, as we have already intimated, be devoted to

Education, Science, Literature, Arts, and Morals. Community, will, therefore, naturally expect, that, upon each of these topics, we should define our position in our introduction. This reasonable expectation we will here attempt to answer, by projecting an outline map, as it were, of our course upon each individual topic, or rather in each department embraced in the programme already given.

LITERATURE,

Will occupy a prominent position in our Journal, which term we here use in a somewhat restricted sense, in accordance with the prevailing custom of the day—a literature, in which instruction and wholesome truth will be communicated to the reader by graphic representations of real life and manners, either of this or a former age, in biographical sketches and personal adventures, and in whatever else of a similar character will interest, and at the same time be productive of real profit. It is, we think, appropriate that a certain proportion of "light reading," as it is sometimes called, should be mingled with that of a more solid, practical, and useful character, occupying the same position in a mental entertainment that a grateful dessert does in a banquet. Such "light reading" matter, however, should always be of the right kind - not that trashy, incoherent nonsense, of which nine-tenths of the pamphlet stories, wonderful adventures, and romances of the last ten or fifteen years has been composed, but that, from the perusal of which one cannot but rise with his purposes of virtuous thought and action strengthened and rendered more vigorous than when he sat down.

EDUCATION,

Is a subject, which, although it may have occupied a minor place in the estimation and regard of the reading community, is, nevertheless, quite as important as any which can enlist the labors and stimulate the exertions of the journalist-not because it is as highly appreciated as other subjects, but because, for that very reason, it should be pressed upon the attention of the public with the greater urgency.