In measuring the prosperity and intelligence of the Connecticut people neither the parish library nor the newspaper must be overlooked. "I am acquainted," wrote Noah Webster in 1790, "with parishes where almost every householder, has read the works of Addison, Sherlock, Atterbury, Watts, Young, and other familiar writings: and will conversely handsomely on the subjects of which they treat." [171] "By means of the general circulation of the public papers," wrote the same author, "the people are informed of all political affairs; and their representatives are often prepared to debate upon propositions made in the legislature." [172]
Through the agricultural communities of Connecticut, as well as in the towns, the weekly newspapers of the state began to circulate freely as soon as carriers or mail routes were established. Even by 1785 there was in Connecticut a newspaper circulation of over 8000 weekly copies, which was equal to that published in the whole territory south of Philadelphia. [173] These papers lacked locals and leaders, leaving the former to current gossip, and for the latter substituting, to some extent, letters and correspondence. The newspapers gave foreign news three months old, the proceedings of Congress in from ten to twelve days after their occurrence, and news from the Connecticut elections three weeks late. Subjects relating to religion and politics were heard _pro_ and _con_ in articles, or rather letters, signed with grandiloquent pseudonyms and frequently marked "Papers, please copy" in order to secure for them a larger public. Fantastic bits of natural science, or what purported to be such, and stilted admonitions to virtue, as well as poems, eulogies, and obituaries, were admitted to the columns of these colonial papers. In 1786, the "Connecticut Courant" apologized for its meagre reports of legislative proceedings, especially of those of the Upper House, Council, or Senate, and promised to give full details. This reporting was a new thing, and it was fully five years more before the practice became general among the half dozen papers published in Connecticut. [l] Space was also given in the papers to the reproduction of selections, even whole chapters, from current and popular writers. Among such letters was a series on "the Establishment of the Worship of the Deity essential to National Happiness." In one of the letters, the author suggests:--