The Hawaiian gazette., 1903-09-11
PULITZER SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM

One of the common remarks In the
! press about Mr.. Pulitzer's $2,OOO,VOO
school of journalism, is that the prop
| er place to make newspaper men Is III
| a newspaper office. This kind or
| postuate Once had a much wider APP
| plication than 1t finds now. Time was
that the lawyer had no faith in law
schools; the place to make an attorney
was In a law office where young man
| would spend his time copying docu-
| ments, trying small cases and mingling
| I'm the hurly-DurS of the courts. But
| in due course the law schools won
their way into high professional re-
spect Doctors, too thought the office
| student would turn out better than the
youth who took a medical course,
| but there are few of that class of doc
| tors to think so any more. II Is not
so long ago that circuit-rIders, veteran
exhorters at camp meetings, sneered
| at the term in theology; but where Is
| the influential pulpit that Is now IN
habited by the preacher whose only
| 'larnln'" was picked up on the road?
Only In journalism. which should be the
| most progressive of callings, does the
musty old prejudice against speciai
school or collegiate course for news
paper writer's prevail
| Far be II from us to decry the value
of the training young man gets IN
newspaper office. True journalists are
made there. But the point Is that n
newspaper office has other duties
than to educate boys and girls in the
details of its business. 1t ought not
to be a kindergarten or common
school, When 1t Is so the readers OF
the paper upon which the tyros do their
practice work, have to take the eVli
consequences in bad writing-which
driven editor often has no time to re-
par-in poor thinking, in damaging
inaccuracies. Every newspaper owes
its readers the best work OF trained
men: It should never permit itself TO
give them the crude product of appren-
tees: yet almost every smaller news
paper is forced to teach 'some OF It's
staff the rudiments of their trade be-
cause It has mo corps of graduates OF
schools of journalism to draw upon !
Law, theology, medicine. teaching the
army and navy. all the intellectual
vocations, own schools of learning 10
recruit from: journalism. which is vast
Iy in need of special knowledge mas
none.
what is InlS SptCldl ~ 4
Iitical history, sociology, laws of libel, /
the doctrine of responsibility, the MS
tory of journalism, business forms and
principles, the organization ana ad- .
ADMINISTRATION Of newspaper offices, pure
English. news values, the preparation
of copy" typewriting and the like
may be set down as part of 1t. These
things may be learned in schools. why
,st Inf
giate courses now; and it is a fact that
the most famous journalists of the time
spent the years in studying such things
which other young men passed wholly ,
in newspaper offices learning to be re-
porters all their lives and underlinSs /
of the men who were college bred.
OF course the office experience must
be had by the beginner with the press
as with the law: but 1T may be taken
as the sum of common experience that
the youth who goes to the Office pre-
pared by competent teachers will learn
more there in two years than the oitlce-
bred youth has learned in his whole
apprenticeship and Will. moreover be
able to use what he has learned more
sllilfully. There is no question about
that. Horace Greeley, the greatest of
the offlce-bred journalists insisted upon
having young college graduates about
him in the editorial positions of the
Tribune. He did not turn to the
prentice hands for help: instead ne
drew about him men like Charles a.
Dana, Rayard Taylor, Whitelaw Reid
DR.. Ripley and John Russell Young;
and these men were the beacon lights
of journalism until Joseph Pulitzer
came. And one of the first things TINS
great man does with his accumulated
riches is to give young men the chance
to enter journalism by route winch
by that act. he confesses TO be n wider
and fairer one than that which cir
cumstances compelled him to choose
for his own.