OUR PURPOSE:
By a Society which has undertaken the task of contributing, as far as lies in its power, to the diffusion of useful knowledge, no means should be neglected by which instructive amusement can be afforded.

Timid (although well-meaning) persons might perhaps be inclined to censure such a society, should it set the example of applying the powers of the press to the production of a Wisconsin Report. They might object that the instrument which is intended for good might be used for evil; that publications in form so cheap as to be accessible to the lowest class of readers, would soon fall into the hands of the lowest class of writers.

We doubt this, although we know it is the opinion of many excellent persons; we have good and substantial reasons to assign for our doubts, but into those reasons we shall not enter, the time for them is past. The evil (if it be an evil) is already in being.

The demand of the public has already called into existence free periodical publications, of which eight or ten have established a regular readership. It will be cheering intelligence to those who would have dissuaded from this undertaking, that the most noxious of them have been hitherto the least successful.

The channel, then, is open. Through its course must flow much of the information conveyed to the minds of a large and increasing class of readers. We are called upon to pour into it, as far as we are able, clear waters from the pure and healthy springs of knowledge. That duty we will not neglect; in the attempt to fulfil it we think that we ought not to fail.