The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-03-06
CHARLES HOPKINS CLARK
 SPEAKS 0N JOURNALISM
SECOND AND FINAL LECTURE THIS YEAR ON BROMLEY
 FOUNDATION.

Real Training School for Newspaper
 Work is the Newspaper 0ffice-AI-
 ways Room in the Businass--Best
 Single Outfit an Alert NTind-A Lit-
 tie "Grind" on speIling-vital Ques-
 ton in Editing Newspapers.
 Charles Hopkins Clark, editor of the Hartford Courant, last night delivered the second and final lecture this year on the Bromley foundation, established in honor of the late Isaac Bromley, the subject of the lecture being Journal ism" The first lecture delivered e week ago dealt with the history of the newspaper.
 MT. Clark began his address by say ing that it ought to be easy to con- duct a newspaper, because so many people stand ready to tell how it should be done. The difficulty lies in the fact that their directions do not agree He expressed his objection to describing newspaper work as journalism In SO far as that term carried with 1t the idea of profession for which one re- ceived a training outside. The real training school for newspaper work is the newspaper office. The modern newspaper dates from the time inme- diately following Jacksons presidency, and was brought into existence by men like Greeley, Raymond, Bennett and Dana. But the newspaper since then has outgrown the personal quality | which they imparted to 1t, and has be- | come so great concern that one in- | diVidual is only indirectly responsible | for its management. Mir. Watterson in the Louisville Courier-Journal and Dr. St. Clair McKelway in the Brooklyn Eagle he mentioned as among the few | individuals whose personality is still | widely recognized in the work of large newspapers
 l The speaker continued: "In 1851 MT, Greeley said in reply to an inquiry that there might be such a thing as a $5,000 salary in the newspaper business, but the largest he personally knew of was l $S,000. I am told that nowadays double these figures is not infrequently paid on the larger newspapers, but think, that all men connected with neWspa- 1 pers will bear me out that no other | business as a whole pays so little for | so much work and so much talent as the newspaper does. The compensation l comes in the vital interest that the worker develops in his work which makes machine like drudgery ilnpossi- ble, and on the contrary is constant stimulus and entertainment. Presuma- bly, he is always dealing with some- thing new and something interesting, otherwise 1t would not be newspaper material. Often he is privileged to see for himself the effect and influence of his work upon the public.
 "There is always room in the news paper business both because of it's growth, and because so many fall out for all the reasons from over work to i've in the first place to the man of in dependent notions, because he can get pay enough at the start to meet his living expenses, and, in effect go to school, and have the school pay him for attending. The best single outfit is an alert mind that Is interested in whatever is going on. A dull and un- observant person is foror1ained to fail The more general information that che alertness has already acquired the bet ter the preparation, history, of course. standing first in usefulness and import ance, as it does for all men of pub- lie affairs.
 Presumably the college graduate If his tastes run toward the newspaper is particularly qualified for 1t by reason of his education, though I admit that it was for long time byword of our office that the first thing to do with a college boy was to teach him how to write legible hand and spell his words according to the established standard That, however, has all gone by. There is, believe, no longer any standard for spelling, and writing is not allowed for newspaper copy. So the typewriter has become practically universal in newspaper offices.
 Tt is amusing to observe how illog- ical people can be with newspapers