The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1903-08-28
FIRST COLLEGE OF JOURNALISM.
New York World

New YORK World
The College Of Journalism endowed
by Mr.. Joseph Pulitzer's gift OF - coo,
90 20 Columbia University. as announc-
ed today, will be the first institution OF
its kind 10 the world.
There are lectureships on journalism
10 some Jf our universities, and there
have been private schools protesting 20
teach the art OF newspaper making by
correspondence or otherwise. One OF
the objects of the Columbia School Of
Political Science is officially declared to
be ITO give al adequate economic and
legal training to those who intend TO
make journalism their profession.
But there Is not a single institution of
collegiate rank in which a young man
desiring TO enter newspaper work can
obtain systematic training, covering
the whole field of his chosen profession.
such as he could procure in any one of
scores of institutions if he desired to fit
himself for the practice of law or Of
medicine or to enter the ministry.
The result is that journalism, which is
really the most intricate and exacting of
all professions, requiring the widest
range of knowledge and holding high
ly responsible relation TO the peo-
pie and to public affairs, ranks in
many minds as not even a profession at
| all
At the time of the last census there
were in the United States ia ,O73 LAWYERS
and 30,09S persons classed as journalists.
The legal profession was provided with
trained recruits by 100 law schools
with !, JOG professors and instructors.
For fair proportion there should have
| been at least 20 colleges of journalism
with faculties 29l strong. There was |
not one. Not single one of the 30,09S |
newspaper men and women in the coun-
try had enjoyed what lawyer would
call systematic professional train
ing.
1t is the fashion in the newspaper
world to say that this is as it should be
to ridicule the idea If training the
recruits of the press for their work and
to insist that journalism, alone of all
arts, sciences, trades and professions in
the world cannot be systematically
taught, but must be picked up as boy
picks up a knowledge of swimming when
he is thrown into deep water. Some
boys drown.
And yet every newspaper is a daily
sufferer from the lack of training in its
staff The first question an editor asks
of an applicant for position is, What
has been your experience?" In other
words: Have you picked up some
knowledge of your duties at the expense
of some other newspaper, or must |
waste my time teaching you the rudi- |
ments Of your trader"
In former years boy began the study
of law by sweeping out lawyers office,
or of medicine by mixing pills for a a
country doctor. Instruction 70, news I
paper work is still in the same stage
That law and medicine are now studied c
in professional schools, while d know a
ledge of newspaper work must be 'pck- a
ed up" in an office, does not mean that a
journalism is any less capable than .
law or medicine of being Systematically b
taught, but merely that the methods a
Of preparation for one profession have S
stood still, while those for the others
have advanced c
OF course no school can make great n
editor, great war correspondent or a a
star reporter" any more than it can II
make Millet, Lorenz or a Henry Ward 0
Beecher. But it can teach the right lt
which the genius and the clod
alike must observe; it can give protec-
lion against ignorant blrnders, and it
IN show how to make use of the sources n
Of accurate information. 1t is the func- i
ion of a technical school to enable it's b
graduates to handle the tools of their a
profession with correctness and facility g
for force and originality they must de- l.
pend upon themselves -
The object of this School of Journal =
SIN. as described by it's founder, is to s,
make the newspaper profession still u
lobler one-to raise its character and z
to increase its power and b
prestige, through the better equipment
# those who adopt it, and by attract.
ng to it more and more men of the
highest capacity and the loftiest !.
deals. RI