The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-03-08

From the Editor and Publisher.
 ~ PEAKING of the regular schools of Journalism which have been es- o tablished in some of our larger universities, Irwin s. Cobb, the we'll known newspaper man, has said:
 1 T don't think any one could be grad uated from one of them and at once be- came finished newspaper man, but do think he would stand better chance eventually of becoming one than man of equal ability who had not taken such course.
 "One of the best features of course of journalism is that it is good an anti dote for too much study of English. The tendency of many courses in literature is to give the idea that the English lam guage is an end and not means" At Columbia, for example, although the 1 Spectator the university undergraduate daily. has recently been purchased by the university, and acquired a press of it's own, it is, after all, "a college publica- ton. managed altogether by students, and having no relation whatever to the school of journalism The quotation is taken from a letter written by Prof. Talcott Williams director of the Pulitzer School of Journalism at Columbia, to a member of the Times staff, explanatory of the work of the institution.
 Tn the work of reporting, Professor Williams letter goes on to say, the ] fourth year class, which is our technical year, is organized as city room, and
 covers New York city just as a city stair would. During the current year this IS done one day of the week. Which, in 1 comparison with the seven days week 1 of work done by the average large daily, great deal of it at a 24-hour-a- day clip, seems surprisingly meager for man who intends to devote his life to the grind. During the next academic year. the professors letter proceeds. Tt will be done two days week." which is some ap- proach, but not a very near one, to ac- tual newspaper hours ''In addition" the 1 professor concludes, members of the class are sent on special assignments during the week when special subjects come up.'
 i Now, to the newspaper man who has ' never been accustomed to making an en- l ga cement even one day in advance, for fear of an unusual pressure of work that would prohibit his attending it, the idea of a school where three years are spent in amassng theory and general information, valuable as they are, and only one-third of year of actual work with the me chanics of the trade, season, to say the least, little impractical. And when one takes into consideration the fact that even on the one or two days week when | actual city work is done, there is, as things stand at Columbia at present. no press for the newspaper student to feed no proof to correct, no going to press hour that one must strain to meet-in short, none of the actual, tangible me- chanics of the trade for him to familiar ize himself with--the prospect seems much more ethereal than before, however Ely
 sian it is for the students in the course
 while engaged in its pursuit.
 ! For although the school of journalism on Mornngside Heights New York. nom- inally gets out as the tern goes, a paper each week called The Blot. that paper never is set up in type, never sees
 the light of day, according to the school
 circulars own confession. It consists
 merely of dummy makeup, in which
 the various articles or "stories'' prepared
 by the students during the week, are as-
 signed to pages according to their inn
 portance, are headlined, corrected and
 fitted with their appropriate pictures,
 which, too. are never made into actual
 newspaper cuts" The getting together
 of The Blot is more like the weekly col lection of test papers in college lecture
 course, for the appraisal of the instruc-
 tor, than 1t is taken to the process of preparing a daily edition for distribution.
 And that brings the inspector to another dangerous feature of the Columbia insti-
 tutions work. the incorporation in the weekly practice sheet of fictitious news
 done for practice only.
 . For example, a student sleuth, who has Ibeen put wise" will go out to the corner drug store and phone in fake story on, say, Hudson tunnel cave-in. Imme- diately men, who have also been put
 wise,'' will be sent out to phone in de- { tails suppanted by their imaginations
 The student staff that remains in the of.