New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1903-08-09

every other crank reform amateur photography
and so on and on TO anything and everything
new that may be found under the sun. In fact.
the great American daily has become good
deal like the great department store''-a sort of
universal provider. Never since the first daily
printed did they give so much for the
money, and never were they so much sought
after. Everybody reads them-and nearly
everybody. among the more educated classes at
least, abuses them
We have seen the startling changes of the last
twenty years. What you to expect and pre-
pare for in the next twenty?
It is safe to predict that the better class of
daily newspapers and their readers may come
10 a mutual understanding that less quantity
and better quality would be mutually advan-
tageous. The Saturday Review" once called
Nacaulay the father of picturesque reporters,
and Dickens has often been called their prince.
No doubt these are ambitious models; but the
press that sent MacGahan 10 European war
and Harding Davis and Bigelow to an Ameri-
can one. and has developed so many of our
most popular authors from its ranks, can rise
above the present wordy and tedious level
81 telling the news whenever the editors and
their readers agree that it is desirable. In that
direction lies one of the best hopes for the future
of the best newspa pers. Fewer words, shorter
stories, better told; fewer SIS week reporters,
who only write by main strength and awkward
ness and more men who have learned the
capacities Of the English tongue; fewer men
whose chief idea Is TO rake in all the rubbish
they and label it with startling headlines,
nd more men who know what IS worth telling
and know how to single it out from the mass
of rubbish; fewer mere photographers in non
pareil whose sole idea is to down in fine type
everything they see, and more artists who know
what TO see and how TO make, in words
picture Of it-that is the line of progress for
intelligent press. worthy Of an intelligent
community But first Of all the public must
make UP its mind that the merit Of paper, its
enterprise its resources and its Importance are
not determined by the number Of its pages
that paper is made out of cordwood and costs
Two cents a pound; that type is set by steam,
and that white sheets can be run through print
ing machines in any number you want in any
big Office at the rate of 100000 an hour. II the
ipeople continue to want quantity. as they GER
fainly seem to do now. the quantity will no
doubt continue to be printed-though Sheridan's
ghost should hiss in every EDITORS ear that easy
printing, even more than easy writing, makes
curst hard reading.
Thus far these suggestions may have seemed
10 partake moro Of preaching than of prophecy.
Tt is for the public, quite much as for the
newspapers or for the young men who are now
coming forward to make them, to determine
whether, when grouped, they portray at all the
newspaper of the next quarter or half century.
We shall have fewer sensational papers, and
get the news told more as landscape is painted,
with some sense of perspective and some artistic
somission of offensive or worthless objects, when
ever and as far as the public taste is we'll
enough educated to prefer a correct and Viva
-cious style 10 blood and thunder written and
printed as if with a paint brush. We shall
surely have shorter reports of many things, if
not also smaller papers. The notion that sun
days paper must be ten times big Mon
days will be mitigated The first class daily
paper of the future is not likely to come in the
form of a book. or even a pamphlet Whatever
its form or quality or contents, the people that
read it VIII pay for tit will not be eleemosy
nary institution, chiefly conducted by the adver-
Using business of the country for the benefit
of anybody that will read. Its wealth and pros
perity will be welcomed a gain and security
for the whole community. 1t will indulge in
sham about being independent of business
considerations 1t will be best liked when its
owners conduct il, and least when its owners, en-
gagged elsewhere, make their newspaper an in
vestment as a means of surreptitously furthering
private ends 1t will not be intensely individual
ized-will not be a paper 1t will sup
port parties a means to patriotic end and
religion leading TO the best life; but it will
not be party organ or organ OF the
churches. II viii deal with politics according
20 its convictions. and tell the truth according
10 its capacity; but. not being edited by angels.
it viii make mistakes sometimes and perhaps
have even the grace sometimes to acknowledge
them.
If now. among students who have done me
the honor 10 follow these remarks, there
should be some still unwise enough TO per-
sist in an intention 10 take up newspaper work
the simplest advice to give them, and about as
practical any they are likely TO follow is to
initiate Lord Bacon, and take all knowledge
for their province The average newspaper
man on the great daiIies is far better edu-
Gated to-day than twenty years ago, but the
standard of qualifications is likely in the next
twenty TO be higher still. Like most of my
colleagues on the press, ! have little faith in
schools Of journalism or in courses of Jour-
nalism,' or, If you must have the truth, in
lectures on journalism, either. The only place
10 learn the newspaper business is in a news
paper Office. and you have to be caught toler-
ably young to learn it at all. But the place to
acquire some of the qualifications for the
work is the place where you can get the best
general education the world affords Above all,
it must be an education that teaches you to see
straight and 10 think straight, and therefore its
very foundation must not be undermined by too
eager search for easy electives
We may next lock for whatever will facilitate
vide acquisition and persuasive expression You
must first know things, and know where 10 ind
things. and next know how 10 interest people in
your way Of telling these things, and in your
reasoning about them Knowledge real knowl-
edge, not q. smattering of the history of your