The San Francisco call., 1898-05-01

1 ities of the individual. There Is no royal ] road to success.
 ! It is hard to tell exactly what special | lines of study and investigation are re- | quired for each of these divisions. Men who have natural qualities and special l tastes will easily excel in that for which ! they are best fitted. The ablest and i most successful men and women will
 work out their salvation in their par | ticular field
 i I might sum it all up by saying, as Rudyard Kipling said the other day i'll
 reply to question by a young author as to what he should do to succeed,
 Keep on trying till you either fail or
 succeed"
 It may be, however, that when l was asked to write this article on How 10 Succeed as a Journalist it was eX- pected that I would give some practical
 hints to that large class of young Americans whose ambition it. is to be- come efficient writers for the daily press, and eventually graduate to edi- torial positions. That is, to be sure, only one branch of journalism, but no doubt it is the one that is most at tractive to young men just starting out in. life. To such young men, may or fer, perhaps; a few helpful suggestions. It requires very broad and com prehensiVe mental taste to be an efn- cient member of 8 staff of neWspa- Der WrlIerS. Men WHOSE IllitlAo llcllOl ebiAy I tend to some one line of thought should avoid the newspaper field, because newspaper is a kaleidoscope. in which the topics to be written about are changing every day. To-day war IS the foremost topic, next week the Klondike will be at the front agfn, and a little. later it may be that yachting or baseball will be the all-absorbing theme. Suddenly, in the fall the scenes will shift, and politics will be the sta
 pie news of the day.
 To begin with, young man who pro- poses to enter the wide yet keenly competitive field. of repOrtOrial and edI- torial work for the daily press will do
 we'll to be quite sure that he has an aptitude for such work It is true of every profession and trade that some men who are in it are peculiarly we'll fitted for it's duties, while others are
 not quite so well fitted and still others ,a are not fitted at all There is doubtless a. place for every willing and capable man somewhere in the busy world, but it is also true that many men never find the place which is truly theirs. Henry Ward Beecher once remarked that a large part of the misery in the world was due to the fact that too many square men were in round holes, and vice versa, and that he had known many poor musicians who might have made very superior carpenters.
 The idea that I wish to convey is that the highest success as a reporter or editor is not to be hoped for by any man whose temperament and abilities are not well suited to the peculiar work which newspaper reporters and editors have to do. There is such thing as the journalistic temperament" There is such a thing as the nose for news" by which term is meant quick, prac- tically instantaneous appreciation of what is news, and how much value one piece of news has when compared with another piece of news that comes in at the same time.
 This faculty of knowing what the news is and of weighing its relative value and importance is closely allied to another equally necessary, namely. the faculty of seeing where a good piece of news may be dug out and brought to the surface right in the nick of time, when it is most interesting and valuable. I am inclined to think that this gift of news hunting is born with some men, and that they make the best journalists in the reportorial and edi- torial sense. And if this gift is not a part of the young mans natural equip ment, if he does not have a keen and all-alive sympathy with the events of the day, as they present themselves every morninP and evening, then I ad wise him to try some other occupation: for I doubt if the gift is ever acquired