The morning call., 1893-10-22
DANA ON JOURNALISM.

Charles A. Dana OF the New 0rk sun
has just delivered at Union College,
Schenectady. lecture on "The Press and
J ournalism." He is such an expert that
everything he says on the subject deserves
respectful attention.
On the moot question whether young
man who proposes to adopt journalism as
a calling is the better for college educa-
ton he decides unhesitatngly in the
affirmative Greeley used to say that the
real newspaper man was the boy who
slept on newspapers and fed upon ink;
but Greeley took care to man the Tribune
with college graduates. The truth of the
matter is that the more a man knows the
better journalist he will become, and it
will not be denied that young men who
receive complete education will on the
average know more than those who only
receive an incomplete education. The
fact should not be lost sight of, however,
that when young man is learning one
thing he is not learning another. While
he is at college he is not getting the ex-
pereDce in life and public affairs which is
essential to successful journalist. Thatthe
college ducation is valuable no one will
deny. The question is if in the training of
might not be more proftably occupied.
Schooling. even in the highest grades. will
not make a man a journalist if the faculty
is not in him. Passing over for the mo-
ment that branch of journalism which con-
Germs itself with reasoning and looking
only at the branch which supplies the pub
lie with information, it may be said that
the qualities which journalist requires
are the power to observe and the faculty
to describe ones observations.
Robert Houdin, the prestidigtateur, tells
us that in training disciple he would walk
him rapidly past shop window and re-
quire him to state how many objects he
had noticed in the window and what they
were like. At first the lad could not recall
over one-third as many objects as the pro-
fessor saw. and those he could not minutely
describe. But after a few months training
the pupil held his own with his master.
That is the education which a newspaper
reporter requires. Let a trained reporter
see launch or race or q fire in company
with young man of equal parts, but who
has had no newspaper training, the re-
porter will see variety of things which
the other will not notice, and what he sees
he will see clearly and fully. The asDirant
for newspaper life must learn to observe.
and to observe accurately. If he can ac-
quire this art half his battle is won. The
other half is TO learn to put his observa-
tions into clear, plain, grammatical Eng
liSh. with color and figure of speech if he
can, but at any rate in such lucid and
graphic phrase thst the reader shall have
the scene before his eyes.
A young man who has mastered the art
of observation, and of throwing his OBJ
servations on paper. has learned a calling
which is perhaps as sure to supply him
with livelihoods as law, medicine, art or
science. A man may be beautiful writer
and an acute reasoner, but he is worthless
as reporter unless be can observe and
describe. He may be as learned as
Aristotle and as eloquent as Wendell
Phillips; he would not earn wages in the
local-room unless he can catch every de-
tail of a scene and transfer his perceptions
to paper.
There are points upon which Mr.. Dana
failed to dwell. Like most writer's on jour-
nalism he seems to consider writer's as
alone entitled to the title of journalists.
That is ignoring the most important de-
partment of a daily paper. A journal
could live-though 1t would not be in
fluential and powerful-if it contained no
comments on the news; but without the
news it could not live at all. Newspaper
writers are perhaps more easily found than
n ewspaper reporters; but a frst-class
writer for daily journal requires not only
clear style, encyclopedia information and
logical turn of mind, but what is much
rarer, the instinct of knowing what the
public will read, on the day the newspaper
appears, and what they will not read. A
writer may be as brilliant as Macau!ay,
and as sound as George Washington; but
if he discourses in his paper on q topic
which does not interest his readers, or
does not interest them on that particular
day. he will not be read, and the space he
occupies in the paper will be wasted.