Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1877-07-12

with loafers that they insulted the
most faithful and industrious class
of men in the profession of Journal
ism? Did they forget for the mo-
ment hat when an Undergraduate
leaves college with the whole world
before him where to chose, the first
thing he attempts is newspaper
work? We venture to say there is
not a metropolitan or provincial
newspaper of any note that does
not regularly receive applications
for positions on its staff from young
men whose claims to recognition
are based solely upon the fact that
they are graduates of some college
or university, and have deliv-
cred either the class poem
or the salutatory address at
the last commencement. Not
one in fifty is successful in his
efforts to gain admissions on the
press, and when he does his knowl-
edge of the subjective and obiec-
tive, the concrete and unfathom-
able, with a capital U, stands him
in little stead beside the rough and
ready tact, powers Of observation
and concise and incisive style of
writing which the true reporter
possesses. Were it not for the men
whom these self.conceited youths
class with loafers they would never
be heard Of in the world. The men
who provoke the very thoughts
which great minds afterwards elab-
crate and give to the world are the
men who write for the press, the
men whose names are unknown,
the men who, when the average
student is studying anatomy as
seen in the Soldene troupe, or Greek
choruses as represented in the mu-
sic of Ofenbach, are toiling faith
fully that the world may learn that
knowledge may be dliiHsed, and
that the history of to-day may be
rightly chronicled; nay, to come
down further, where would the
average commencement orator be
without the journalist, whose NOR
alizings he can safely appropriate,
and whose jokes he can readily use?
Were it not for the reporter his
fame would never reach beyond the
college walls; but that industrious
individual "loafs" into the build
ing, and s~traightway next morning
a hungering world knows that
Jonathan Dubb received the degree
Of Bachelor of Arts and delivered
an Grafton on "The Subjective
Analysis Of the Impenetrable and
the Infinite" A Harvard man, in
writing to the New York Tribune,
defends the insult by saying that
reporters who are college graduates
would have received the greatest
courtesy at the hands Of the crew.
But has it come to this, that a re-
porter, when he visits a college,
must carry his diploma with him
, to insure admission? Surely there
are gentlemen in the world outside
of the circle of college graduates.
"Worth makes the man, the want
, of it the fellow" and the fellows of
, Harvard showed their want of true
courtesy, Of civility and manliness
ia penning a notice which was the
very incarnation and embodiment Of
. vulgarity, Another defender of
: these young men asserts that they
do not wish any notoriety, and have
never showed any anxiety to have
!. their contests made public. 1t is
, to be hoped that the press will re-
member this in future. Too much
prominence has been given to these
intercollegiate matches. They have
been invested with a dignity which
0 they did not deserve, and once with
draw them from public notice, and
I it would soon be seen whether these
contests are carried out for the sake
of "grandmothers and sweethearts,"
! or for a vain pride in public notice.