The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-01-14
MR.. DANA ON NEWSPAPERS.
Different kinds of JournaIs-EditOrs
Cannot Know Too Much.
Address at Cornell University.

IL nnOW 100 Much
Address at Cornell University.
Mr.. Dana said there were two kinds of
useful men in this age. First, the man of
thought, science and invention, such as
Edison. The second class of useful men, he
said, were those who were endowed with
the gift of amassing wealth, or getting rich,
against whom people were wont to declaim
and against whom legislation was directed.
Among these were Ezra. Cornell and Hen
ry Sage. These men, Mr.. Dana said, knew
how TO save and to give for great public
enterprises. Wealthy men were a useful
and necessary part of the age and were do
ing good.
THE newspaper profession continued
Mr.. Dana, lis certainly a learned profession
In one sense. but at the same time there
are certainly many newspapers in which
learning is very sparsely and very meanly
applied.
Q the whole, the newspaper is very
much like human nature-it is right some
times and it is wrong very often. But the
newspaper is not only a necessary institu-
ton, but it is a useful and beneficial insti-
tuition. Just now the business of making
newspapers is going through a revolution;
it is passing through changes of a very
radical and remarkable nature.
These changes are due-first, to the in
vention of new printing machinery, which
makes it possible to publish the large edl-
lions and the large newspapers we see all
around us. Before these machines were in
vented a machine that could turn out 600 or
was in the world. Now, with the most i'm
proved presses, you can turn out eight. ten
or Twelve pages at the rate of 10000 papers
in an hour.
A important question to be decided by
the newspaper conductor is, what kind of
newspaper Will you make? That question
may be divided into two: VIII you make a
newspaper for sensible people or for fools?
Il would not be understood as meaning TO
intimate that there is anything unworthy in
making a newspaper for fools, since there
IS high authority for the statement that
ana 1t is perfectly right to provide for them
in newspapers. We see that this is very
eonscientlously performed by very able in
dlvlduals, and | have heard that they make
For my part I find more entertainement
IN making a newspaper that tries to be of
the other KIND. AS some young gentlemen
tbae are pound to become newspaper men.
tthheesy 81 reject carefully which kind
NOW, a word as to the education that
fne intending journalist should work for.
thing that it is possible for him to know.
never knew a newspaper man who knew
I 1871 ihuen, except those very few in number
VINO knew too many things that are not so.
4 mysel1 am a strict partisan of the old
fashioned. classical education. The man
VINO can read Virgil, Tacitls, and the Iliad
ana II ne can read Aristotle and Plato. ali
me oetter, is the man l have in mind. But
above all, he should know his own Iang,o9a
the most beautiful and wonderful lanenaSs
= existence. He that is going to write the
= lG 5a ianguage. who is going to publish
d ualy manual in that language. must
know that language thoroughly. '
men there are a great many other sci
TO learn He ought to know the practicai
sciences above all. History he Should know
SO much. But il is tberpeii ana ! 90 + not b.l know
70 ne offended to-. All the other discussions
aeoul the arts and science of making news
papers have dwelt always on getting news.
That is always very desirable, but, fortu-
nately, that is provided for by the news
associations. The editor of the paper is left
to attend to his more important duties. The
same system prevails with respect to the
news of the whole country.
There is one point which I want to i'm
and that is that all newspaper men. while
ucation that I have been speaking of. re-
quire also a business education. 1t is only
that a man requires the ability of dealing
with the questions of this world. 1t is very
desirable, indeed, that the newspaper man,
fairs of this world, should know them per-
sonaily,, and it is also desirable that he
ture which can only be acquired, so far
as my experience goes. in a wholesale and
| retail store. I consider the six years that
| spent in a Buffalo dry-goods store as more
beneficial than any other six years of my
| life.
lone of the most interesting things that
an editor and newspaper man has to deal
with is literature of the day, and this in
but that part of the literature which APP
| pears in newspaper and magazine fiction
be we'll up in these things. He ought to
cultivate the sense of art and beauty
The Sunday newspaper, Mr.. Dana thought,
| was a good institution. If 1t was wrong to
make it it was wrong to read it, and the
American people had stamped it with their
| approval, because the circulation of the
| Sunday newspaper was double that of the
| daily. AS long as the people buy them,
People complained because occasionally
| there were obnoxious things in newspapers,
but there would always be. The newspa-
| per was the mirror of the days events. and
had to chronicle the good things and the
bad, and, as the bad predominated. natur-
ally something noxious would nave to be
| chronicled.
If one paper did not print a certain item,
| people would take another that did. If a
Divine Providence permitted such things to
| occur, surely we must be permitted to tell
| the facts to each other
'"The value of the free press is not now
sufficiently appreciated in this country
continued Mr.. Dana. 'Tt is only some par
eurrence. which can show It before the
eyes of all. l do not know that l can state
il, but the great value of the press is that
it stands between the people and the injus-
tice of parties. And now let me lay down
one or two .maxims which seem to me of
! great importance, especially to the conduc-
"~First-Never be in a hurry. S~econd-An
| UP for the badness of a bad one. This
| seems to me one of the ~profoundest things,
but perhaps 1T may not be SO. ~Third-Stand
by the Stars and Stripes, and stand. what
ever happens, stand for liberty. Fourth
Don't fear to say, in any circumstances,
that you have been mistaken. There is a
tradition in newspapers of the old school
that you must never say you are wrong.
That is bad advice and q bad principle. If
a man has not the moral courage which en-
ables him to say Yes, l was wrong he
had better retire from business and never
make another newspaper
Meaning of
| New York Tribune.
| The Boston journal gives va rjoI1S than