THE NEW TRAINING FOR RISING JOURNALISTS

...of literature, especially the literature of politics...

...An age of public utility regulation could not long be neglectful of the greatest of them all, the press...

...of modern languages...

...and to judge correctly from the great mass of daily events, is no matter of mere experience...

...The duty of a state university is no longer regarded as ending with the boundaries of its campus...

...Pulitzer pointed out, in his celebrated article in the North American Review, that the average student is not capable of choosing wisely, that the different classes conflict, and that the instruction needed Is a very special sort—suited to the needs of the journalist, rather than the lawyer, the linguist, or the scientist...

...Many universities have very complete files on which the student may browse...

...Not that the university is going to grind out full-fledged editors and special feature writers, but that It will educate them so that their efficiency is greatly Increased and the distance between "cub" and managing editor materially lessened...

...When Joseph Pulitzer advanced his ideas of a School of Journalism, eight years ago, he prophesied that, before the century had closed, such a school would be generally accepted as a feature of specialized higher education, like schools of law or medicine...

...Pulitzer's endowed school was to come after the establishment of the state College of Journalism, nevertheless, his ideas have formed the basis of nearly every curriculum, as a study of their catalogues indicates...

...And it is in response to this ideal that the School of Journal-ism has sprung up in our great colleges...

...That change was inevitable in both cases...

...of arbitration...

...Wisconsin has a fine collection of well-written stories and feature articles, that have been clipped from the best publications...

...Instilling Ideas and Ideals" THE BROAD foundation to be gained from a study of present social, political and industrial conditions, coupled with an acquaintance with literature, is the essential aim to which all schools of journalism are devoted...

...the sale of space, nor the enlargement of circulation—important they may be, as the staff upon which the life of the publication depends, but they belong to the Business Manager, for whom a separate School of Commerce exists...

...but they, certainly, are not the elements of importance to society nor to the true journalist Journalism proper is not concerned with the employment of labor...

...of politics...

...Its function is double: it must help the individual student to work out his personal problem of becoming a successful journalist and it must at the same time make him an efficient public servant...

...Judging from the outline of of courses in Columbia's announcement, there is plenty to be studied that i3 far more essential to the making of our literature than is the running of offices and press machinery...

...He cannot tell what caused it, what other countries have done in the way of prevention, nor does he know where to find the statistics necessary to give that event its full significance...

...In addition there are papers from over 200 differ-ent countries, a most interesting and instructive exhibit...

...Such a course, it is true, will not give much of the mechanical, nor the business and advertising side of newspaper and magazine work...

...The "muck-raking" publication has come to its day of judgment, for it is now a subject of discussion...

...Experience alone will not supply these elements to any man...

...Why not, then, let the general course continue to do duty for would-be journalists...

...It will not be read...

...it ought to and does respond to any call arising from a public need...

...Who would patronize a self-made physician, who bore the stamp of no recognized medical college...

...Neither can the police reporter perform his daily task to the best public interest, without a knowledge of psychology, law and sociology...

...of the former students in the Missouri School of Journalism were then engaged in the pursuit of their profession and the list of their business connections was indeed, creditable...

...Work for the Community" ALTHOUGH Mr...

...Today it is an established thing and over a score of publicly endowed colleges have arisen as competitors...

...of newspapers, the gathering of news and principles of journalism...

...Ten years ago Mr...

...Just as the medicine-man had to give way to the trained family doctor and he in turn to the specialist, so the ignorant reporter and editor must needs fall back before the college graduate, who, in turn, is out-distanced by the technically trained man from the School of Journalism...

...Since it is responsible for an increased demand for reading material, it has a distinct duty in the matter of providing those readers with journalists trained for their work...

...Performing more and more perfectly its task of popular education, the public school has created an ever-increasing number of readers, as our 23,000 publications with their annual distribution of over nine billion copies, well testify...

...Once under way, the movement for a better journalism was not so slow after all...

...For the state university is closer than any other to the people...

...That it will be a better journalism is assured for there has arisen along with the demand for technical training a very definite movement toward the professional, rather than the business attitude...

...Time was, when the long and difficult struggle to the editorial chair began with apprenticeship as a Printer's Devil...

...Willard G. Bleyer, head of Wisconsin's department, considers it the duty of the School of Journalism to train students to observe accurately and to think clearly, to teach them to express their observations and thoughts effectively in writing, to give them an understanding of present political and economic conditions in the light of their origin and development, and to give them practice in the technique of newspaper and magazine writing and editing...

...He little thought that bis magnificent endowment would be far behind the state universities in the blazing of the trail, yet he might have known that, once the idea was made public, the commonwealth institution would embrace it...

...The first three of these elements can be provided for in a four years' liberal arts course that includes, at the same time, the more technical training in writing...

...Since that Conference voted for a repetition of the event this year, one cannot help but feel that we are well on our way to the Utopian state, where that "one supreme end, the public good" will, in truth, be the chief consideration of all who make the profession of journalism theirs...

...The intense specialization of our age has come to demand more than a wide education of any writer...

...Michigan gives credit to her students in journalism for work on the Michigan Daily or other college publications...

...of statistics...

...If his story of the railroad accident or the murder fails to catch the elements of human interest and takes on the nature of a learned treatise, it, too, will fail to perform Its task...

...Yet we all regard as more or less authentic the utterances of editors and reporters absolutely devoid of the qualifications necessary for a correct interpretation of facts and ideas The Changing Order BUT TIMES are rapidly changing...

...He may give facts, but ha cannot interpret, for his experience has not supplied him with a conception of their relation to social problems...

...Laying the Foundation THIS somewhat appalling list of requirements is not so discouraging when one considers that the ordinary "general college education touches on the vast majority of those subjects...

...Real journalism is the interpretation of news, and demands, above all, a wide knowledge of the achievements of mankind...

...Pulitzer's offer of an endowed school of journalism was declined by the President of Columbia, the suggestion arousing much discussion and even derision...

...toward a journalism of higher ideals...

...The student publication proper has long been the laboratory for budding journalists...

...He little thought, however, that before a decade had passed there would be over twenty Schools of Journalism in the Middle and Far West...

...In addition, the more thorough the study of papers past and present, home and foreign, the better...

...of physical science...

...The Most Exacting Profession BUT the college graduate, having a broad general education with no special training in writing (unless he be a genius) is too raw a product to satisfy the present demands of the most exacting of all professions...

...Not that we are to have a truth-strangling censorship, but we certainly may expect a more definite demand for greater honesty and more faithful adherence to the high duties of "lookout on the bridge of the ship of state...

...With this conception of the field of Journalism, it seems that the trustees of Columbia did well when they refused to set up a printing plant as a part of the endowed School of Journalism...

...Kansas has a complete printing office in which many students do regular work, being paid by the hour and learning the mechanical part of newspaper work...

...The idea that all people are entitled to every possible opportunity and assistance in the solution of their problems, the idea of service, is the educational keynote of our time...

...Practice Work in Real Shops YET there are many colleges which regard these matters as important...

...of ethics...

...of history, especially that of the progress of justice, civilization, humanity, public opinion and the democratic idea...

...But that day is past and the self-made journalist cannot compete with the man to whom the vocabularies of science, economics and sociology are as the alphabet...

...Missouri's students learn of advertising, and illustration as well as economics, and psychology...

...of truth and accuracy, by means of a study of books of reference and of bibliography...

...The degree of its success in the former aim is well illustrated by the report of Missouri in November, 1911: ninety-two per cent...

...Making Better Leaders WHEN the university takes up the matter of making better leaders as well as teachers, it...

...Experience in his case, as in that of the custodian of the waste-basket and ink-well, is too slow and too expensive to be compatible with American economic conditions...

...The Newspaper Conference at Madison, Wisconsin, held under the auspices of the State University last year, was a most significant event, for it brought together men from the length and breadth of the country for the express purpose of discussing the ethics of their profession...

...Some 5,000 clippings are there to illustrate good and bad journalism...

...Any novice may write up a railroad accident, but if he know nothing of physics or statistics, he cannot give that acci dent its full interpretation as a publio event...

...It requires "book learning," else the guide is no guide, but a mere imitator...

...There is no reason why it should not continue to serve, in cooperation with the School of Journalism, leaving that institution free to expend all its energies on the more vital work of instilling ideas and ideals...

...The newspaper per se has come into the limelight and the society looking to it for guidance is demanding that it guide...

...As for the editor, if he is to be all that the name implies, he must, above all, be a judge of values...

...of economics, especially the relations between labor and capital...

...The story of "Queed", that learned journalist, exemplifies most clearly the difficulties of the educated but untrained author...

...University Extension has brought visions of a usefulness far beyond the dreams of our forefathers...

...The wonder is, that in an age of vo-cational training, journalism should have been so tardily recognized as a profession demanding its own definite preparation...

...His primary object in establishing a school was to instill within the soul of the rising journalist, the idea of "work tor the community, not commerce, not for one's self, but primarily for the public...

...of law, so far as its fundamental principles are concerned, the principles touching the life and welfare of the people...

...The legislature of Washington has provided her college with a $20,000 newspaper plant in which the students of journalism get out a daily paper...

...His ridiculous efforts to reduce a sociological vocabulary to popular language, his painstaking study of the editorial column, are only too typical of many a struggle...

...not endowed, but maintained by the people as a part of their great educational system...

...The fulfillment of the greater aim, the advancement of the standards of the profession, can best be judged by a study of the sort of instruction that is offered, for we cannot well compare the work of the graduate with that of his untrained colleague...

...The New Training for Rising Journalists Instilling Ideas and Ideals in Young Writers at the Schools of Journalism, To the End That the Press of Tomorrow May Better Serve the Public By MARY BURCHARD ORVIS "NEWSPAPER Laboratory" and "Class in Editorial Writing" are the names of new university courses that are destined to mark the last decade as a turning point in the history of the American Press...

...It was an admission of their shortcomings, but it was a greater indication to their intellectual honesty that brought them...

...of sociology, "the science of the life of man in society...

...As a means for rendering that work efficient, he advocated the teaching of style, by means of illustrations of good and bad work...

...is only fulfilling its purpose...

...It is * * * characteristic of American hustle that the slow and uneconomical school of experience, of apprenticeship, should be replaced by technical training...