Waterbury Democrat., 1902-05-07
A JOURNALISTIC TRAINING

I turn to the training of the young aspirant for the literary side oe paper.
 First, I repeat the warning have al
 ready given: It is not wise for any
 man to take up journalism unless he has a distinct gift for writing. Let
 me, however, immediately add that it
 is not easy always for the young man
 to answer that question satisfactorily in his own case. He may err on the
 side of want of modesty; but he also
 may err on the side of excess of t.
 It is difficult for most of us to know
 what powers We have or what we lack, until we have been trie,l-- until the opportunity has come to us. There
 Is one way of testing your powers of
 writing that is snare Young writers constantly come to me with what they call essays. When you have become a literary man of repute and can write like Matthew Arnold or MT BirreH, you
 can do something with essays; but un-
 ii that moment arrives it is difficult for you to get anybody to look at your essays.
 Take an incident within yonr own KnoWledge-a departure of volunteers. say, Tor the war; trial at tne assizes town in which you live, if you live in one-or something of that kind; try
 to seize the human and dramatic points or the story, and then let your article De read by some competent critic: and so you will get something like q judg- ment worth attending to as to whether you nave or have not the gift of writ lng l use the word gift advisedly.
 hn 1or1o T
 though you may enormously improve natural gifts by training and practice you cannot supply them If they be wanting. At schools they still com Del unfortunate children. who have nat note of music in their brains to spend years at the piano. It IS just as wicked waste of time to send 10 Journalism anybody who has no oriai- nal gift for writing from the hand of nature; for journalism is one of fha professions where one ought 10 be re ally good. Mere moderate ability .;oes not bring sufficient remuneration f, sufhclent certainty of work ;o mako journalism good profession. It is like painting either man is q road painter and then makes a handsome income, or he is just middling paint CT, and then he is liable to starya.
 As a kind of education for q ionr- nal1st l think he will spend lis tim. most profitably in the study cf bistorv or continental languages. and of tbe masters of style ill his own tonoue | regard time spent by anybody who does not intend to be a profession.l scholar over Latin and Creek as sheer waste. It does not do vouno man any harm to go through 1 mi. Vefslty, but I cannot say that I +hinlr It does him so very much good: ibnueb after all there is no university for ona who has to make his living so good as the university of life.
 But, on the other hand unIass Q young man deyotes some years of b,s Ire 10 learning, it is possible that he VIII never get in the habit of rea6iny at all, and without good read;uo 4 ;S dlfhcult for man to rise to good wr;f- ing. 9ou "li'-
 me TWO most read, and in the frne sense, most scholarly men I ever mat III ny HIe, are Justin Mccarthy and the late George Augustus Sala ana neither the one nor the other eyer went ID q university. The one began narn. lns HIS living when he was Ii yoars olu as reporter; the other startad even at an earlier age, for. I think ba vas call boy or a scene painter at , tneater as start in life.
 And when you put these mon, ,,v ina | sloe or university man of a bioh doI gree, you saw how ignorant was. tbo l university man and now learned tba | TWO who had never heard a nnivarsi+,, | lecture isily
 But then these are two eycentiono, ,nen' and whatever had been their | ,lses' would have been great readers put 10 most men reading-especialIv | "iln ,he seflous purpose of acauirirg | X an art to be taught anI 'augnC under the compulsion of com peeitioh ana master, and all tho ras+ ol tne machinery of a scholasti,. es. tablishment es'
 | attach, as will be seen, great. im- L,- portance to reading as a training for lne journalist. When I omit Latin and areek 2 rom the Journalists cnrric1,l,,,, !. is not that do not think thai ,bo study or the great literary models in our own tongue, and if a stldapt k. +o read mem all, he will find that severa1 years will not be too much for fha work. Aoi tEe
 For Journalists, I especially rocom- aiend Macauley. T. F. Green. Da. 2ulncey, Newman and Kipling. This s' or course, not all the ;,ufhars journalist ought to study. Tn Frencn course of BaIzac is very ncaf,,I