The Washington times., 1895-05-12
HIGH SCHOOL BOYS
VERSUS COLLEGIANS
WHICH CLASS DEVELOPS THE
BEST NEWSPAPER MEN.
Clear and Forceful Writing
Will Win Where Pedan-
try Won't.
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A few nights ago several well-known
newspaper men We're discussing over their
cigars aud other things the number and
standing OF the successful members of their
profession who had graduated from the
public school, as compared with those who
were the owners OF what Charles Reade
once called the "hall marks OF gentlemen"
college sheepskins. The conclusions arr
rived at were decidedly in favor OF the
former. The facts were all i'll the direction
If such a result.
The discussion was an extremely inter-
esting Que, and some Of the reasons ad-
bright young Washingtonians who look
forward TO roseate careers on the editorial
tripod. And they form the vast ma Jority.
for almost every boy aud girl in school and
college who has achieved any literary merit
fn his or her studies builds castles in the
air with the pen for troweI.
Why is it that the pupils of the public
schools became better newspaper men
and women than college students? Is it
because they are directed and acquired
more with a view to fitting them for the
serious business of life than to the filling
of their precious heads with q vast amount
OF information that can at best be but
purely ornamental, placing its possessors,
OF course, i'll the ranks OF the so-called
cultured classes, but too often influencing
them to use their credentials for entrance
into the grand army of lotus eaters.
Whatever he the rea aEOD the fact remains
that the great working body OF American
journalists and literateurs generally, those
who depend for their bread and butter on
that form OF intellectual expression evolved
by the pen. come from the public schools.
1t may be argued, and with all truth,
that some of the best newspaper men in
the country have had the advantage OF
college educations, and any of us could
print a long list of brilliant names in
proof of that fact But they are success
full, not merely because they are college
men, but because, unlike the majority of
their fellow colleg fans who aspire to
literary fame, they had the journalistic
instinct, that indefinabe thing called the
nose for news" and, leaving their togas
outside, entered the Journalistic field with
the consciousness tiat they did not know
it ALL" that they had much to learn,
and then proceeded to learn it as if they
had never listened TO the weighty reason
ing of the valedietorian or manned their
comrades on a football field
1t may be argued, too, that as "all
knowledge is useful" the college grad
uate comes to his task better equipped be-
cause of an easy familiarity with the dead
languages. That is all very true, pro-
vided he learns in the hard school of expe-
rence that practical education which the
public school student acquires before COM
i..4A
vantage of the former just because he has
started earlier in the race.
] know that such statements will seem
strange to many, but / know also that
they are well founded, for I base them on
long experience in that greatest of all
schools a newspaper office. In handling
manuscript / have seldom found the col
lege mans other than prolix and abstruse,
learned it Inay be, but bothersome to the
average reader, who, IN these busy days,
likes to have his facts couched in the clearest
and simplest language possible well knit
and devoid of unnecessary verbiage. This
is a crime in a newspaper office, and am
glad to see that it is also becoming a crime
in the eyes of our great magazine editors,
who are every day leaning more and more
to conciseness and simplicity of expression.
Simplicity of expression, too, has come
to be recognized as the highest form OF
literary effort, aud redundancy and labored
writing as little better than pedantic airing
of ones requirements. This reminds me OF
the advice of an old lady to her young friend
that too much devotion to her bfacauley
would send her into the world with
large mouth, but that the constant reading
of the gentle Lambs delightful sentences
would have the contrary effect.
When the last flood made rivers of our
beautiful streets TWO young reporters
Were sent by the city editor to the river
front to gather the facts for q story"
One was high school boy and the other
a graduate Of a famous college. The latter
was quite a long time covering" his
moist field, but when he returned his
essay, for 1t was nothing less, was good
enough for the archives of a university.
1t recited the history of famous floods,
and grandiloquently depicted the scene,
teeming with such ornate language as
"opalescent skies" the ''blue empyrean
vault" and SO on. A good blue pencil
was spoiled OH it.
The high school boys report was q little
grandiloquent also, but he confined him.
self TO ''surging waters" rushing waves"
and like phrases. However, his manu-
script teemed with cold facts, his descrip-
tions were accurate, and his whole effort
was well knit and such as the editor wanted
it was published. The college man is now
q clerk IN real estate office, while the
high school boy is prominent New York
newspaper man.
A young college graduate once entered
the office of the great Dana as q reporter.
He knew it ALL" aud was surprised that
he was not at once assigned to the editorial
page. All college men think the editorial
page of newspaper is ''Just so easy,
Why? The young man, though, deter
mined that he would not long remain a
common reporter" and set about giving