University Missourian. [volume] (Columbia, Mo.) 1908-1916, 1910-05-27
THE COLLEGE PAPER
AS A LABORATORY.

1 "a
| Charles Phelps Gushing, an alumnus
OF the University of Missouri, '07,
writes about college training for
journalism in the April issue of the
Michigan Alumnus. Mr.. Cushing says,
| in part: 49,
| For one who was graduated from
the University only three years ago to
essay to write laws for the guidance
of the new department of Journalism
that Michigan is about to establish
We uld be worse than presumptuous.
have no wish to do anything of that
sort, nor to moralize on the power of
the press. nor to quote Wendell Phil
| lips or Alexis de Toqueville nor even
to repeat what Edmund Burke said
about the Fourth Estate. But l feel
| that three years of newspaper and
magazine writing have furnished me
with at least one suggestion to offer,
namely, what the beginner misses
most when he leaves the university
only half prepared for his trade of
earning a,.liyipg by writing. ~.
'sThis most urgent of all his needs
lis, believe, experience in a good lab
eratory. The university provides for
shop pgactice- for teachers dentists,
Irhysicians, engineers andslawyers, but
ffer the student who is training for
what we call Journalism there is no
shop but the Office of the Michigan
Daily. Often we forget the teacher
a month after graduation; if we are
exceptionally lucky we may never have
to call on lawyer in a lifetime; and
weimay not have to visit the dentist or
the physician more than once or twice
year. The newspaper, however
touches our lives twice day on week
days and again on Sunday. Surely,
then, it is as we'll worth while to train
the makers of newspapers as to teach
| any of these other workmen.
Unfortunately, the Michigan Daily
| as a laboratory for experiments and
denominations in practical Journalism
is at present far from adequate. 1t is
just as well to speak frankly about this
matter. The Daily Office is labora-
tory taught only by students, and often
by students who are not competent
| instructors-men who are not and in
some instances never will become
good reporters or good editors. AS a
college newspaper the Michigan Daily
| would be ranked in class A, and under
one editor within recent years con-
tanned as, much news and as good
| workmanship as could be found at
that period in any publication OF the
1 sort in the country; but at other times
| it has fallen far below the standards
set by Michigan students in half a
dozen other fields. There have been
years when men in the university who
| had ever worked as reporters all re-
fused to serve ON the paper, and it was
written and edited entirely by novices.
Such a situation may have it's humor-
| Gus aspects; but the joke is not likely
to be keenly appreciated by the stu
dent who must choose between no
laboratory at all and a laboratory
where the instructors are as ignorant
as the pupils. How often have l heard
| men who hoped some day to earn their
living by writing lament in some such
vein as this: oh, if there were only
one experienced newspaper man on
the Daily to rip up my copy, to teach
me the ethics of the profession, to
| cuss me when deserved it.
Il believe that if the newspaper men
who have been graduated from the
university in the last ten years were
asked to give their opinions on what
would constitute a good course in
journalism they would answer class
room training under Professor Fred
N. Scott and a good daily paper for
laboratory. Former business man.
ayers of the Michigan Daily say. that
| it might he made an eight-page paper
and still pay fair profit-so there is
the laboratory ready made. 1t would
be an imposition, however, to expect