university education, reminds one of Defoe's championship elsewhere of
women. The business of a writer is "to please and inform," and the
general implication is that genius is more necessary to this end than
learning.

Also characteristic of Defoe is his emphasis upon the advantage to an
author of conversation, "the Aliment of Genius, the Life of all airy
Performances" [p.32]. Likewise, his digression upon education [pp.
34f.], his charge that people of quality in England all too often
neglect their children's education, his remarks upon the advantages of
travel and the need of training in the vernacular, all will be
familiar to readers of Defoe.

_A Vindication of the Press_ is chiefly important for the
corroboration of our knowledge of Daniel Defoe. It presents nothing
that is new, but it gives further evidence of his pride in authorship,
of his rationalization of his actions as a professional journalist,
and of his belief in the importance of a free press. Many of his
characteristic ideas are repeated with his usual consistency in point
of view. Although the critical comments in the essay are thoroughly
conventional, they offer evidence of contemporary literary judgments
and reveal Defoe as a well-informed man of moderation and commonsense,
though certainly not as a profound critic. In the catholicity of his
tastes and interests Defoe is far ahead of his Puritan fellows, and
his essay may be taken as one indication of the growing interest of
the middle-classes for whom he wrote in the greater world of
literature. As Professor Trent remarks in his ms. notes, "Defoe rarely
wrote a tract without introducing something worthy of attention and
comment, and the present pamphlet is no exception to the rule."