Thought News

The foïlowing art-icle in reference to the ncw publicatioai tluit is being fe.siK'd froni this office by Prof. Dewey tuid Mr. Ford, is taken from the Ietroit Tribune of a recent date. It gives an admirable idea of ivhat the niew paper is to be: Tlic editorial in the Tribune of la.st Wonday in regard to the ncw paper, Tlnnijrht Ne-WS, lias erra led a great deal of talk among tbe üniversity iaeulty hre. It has been a matte of great interest to Mr. Dewey and Iiis íriendB in the faciilty as to how the venture of a phidosopher into the the newspaper world would strike the nrdlnary item-httfiter of the dally paper. editorial in The Tribune was ei. Blgn. It was au imlication to Mr. Dewey and his eo-iabórers here that the present newspapor ík nat ontiroly 'without a phiiosopliy. Mr. üewey hae been rath-er overawed by tho large iiücrprptation that some of his disciiples are inclined to put apon liis tewspaper phQoöophy ana when The Tribune correspondent caJled up'on liim to-day he procéeded to disclaim some W the claim.s baat have been made for Thought News. He said: "The matter to which The Tribune l'H'ers must have been some one'e conCeption of vrhat Tliought Xows is to le. It wasn.'t given out by me. Thought Xew.s hasn't such ambitious Hi's!ns as The Tribune eredits t wlth. lts object is not to introduce a uew idea into journalisni ai large, but to show that philoaophy has Borne use. Yon know Ir. Huxley once called jihilDBopJiy ,a matte rol' lunar politícs- it Mas all remóte and abstract. That's nlMHit the way it strikes the student. tuxl the difíieulty is to show him that there iB eome fact to -vhicu philofcophic ideas refer. That fact is the social oi-ganisni. When philosophic ïdoas are not inculcated by themselves but used as tools to pohit out the mieaning of phrasee of social íife thoy tx-gin to have sonie life and value. Instead of trying to eihwoge the newstiaper bnsinees by introduciiig phïloeophy jnto it, the idea is to trausforra philosophy somewhat by introduciüg- phjIoBophy into it. Wlien it Can toe se.en for example, that Walt Whitman's poetry, the great development of short stories at present, the e.entralizing tendency in the railroads aml the introduction of business methode into charity organizations are all parte of one organic social movement, ilion the philosophic ideas about org-ítnism begin to loofc like something definite. The facts themseh-es get more meaaing, too, wlien viewed with relation to one principie than when treated separately as a jumble. Tliis te wfrat the writer meant, probably, when he alluded to the difference betAvcen 'happenings' and 'typical facts.' Any happening, hcnvever slight, is typfical, if treated as au expression of fiomc la w, of the movement of a whole. Any fact, however big, is only an accident if not treated as a symptom, Bé a a exponent. It is quite possible that tho daily newspaper treats events more as accidente than typical. It (must do until it gets hold of the social law, but that's not the affair, one way or the other, of ïhought News. "Besddes this, there are lots of people around the country who are scien■■illy intarested in the study of teocial questions. Not having any defiMite directlon, they are reading in an todefinito way in the books or clse they are tangled up wlth some general theory like Bellamy'g. The idea is tliat some, at least, of tliis entliusíasm and social interest might be advnneed froin a study of the past to a study of the present. These etudmts niLtrlit investigate questions at flret hand in tlieir own towns- questlons like charity organization, the Be made of psychology in the schools 'un inventoi-y of the social resources ín vïllage Ufe, etc. Then we wcrald Biave a n exeluni-o. Here at the UniVersity we aro more or less shut off im our study of psychology and ethics from the faets themselves. We would pet their facts and the oaitside inqüirere would get our tlieory and taethods- the beneflts of sygtem and toterpretation. It would be a ssort of university extensión, you sec, with -eciprocal benefite to both sides."