Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/526

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

posal is feasible." 05 Others have shown a mild interest in the establishment of such courses in London and in the provincial universities, while disapproving of them for Oxford and Cam- bridge.6 The wishes of both circles were probably met when an independent school of journalism was opened in London in 1921 under the patronage of an impressive list of titled journalists and the personal directorship of Max Pemberton. But in spite of scepticism and even ridicule, courses in journal- ism have been established and have increased with astonishing rapidity both in numbers and in attendance. " A great school of journalism has been founded through the benefaction of a prominent editor,8 students trained in such schools are found in many newspaper offices, annual conferences are held by those giving in- struction in journalism and attended by men and women from every section of the country, and the far-reaching results of these conferences is suggested in the numerous volumes now coming from the press. Achievement has not only silenced doubt, but it has created enthusiasm for the professional aspects of journalism. 65 Letter to the President of the Press Club, Toronto, October 10, 1904, Goldwin Smith's Correspondence, pp. 418-421. 66 J. C. Collins, "The Universities and a School of Journalism," Nineteenth Century and After, February, 1908, 63: 327-340. The general conventional opposition to such schools is expressed by "A Journalist " in Bohemian Days in Fleet Street, pp. 18-19. 67 In 1915, courses in various phases of journalism were given in forty-one universities and colleges and several maintained schools of journalism. Talcott Williams, World Almanac, 1916, p. 566. In 1918, the secretary of the American Association of Teachers of Journalism, gave lists of eighty-six institutions offering work of some character in journalism.-J. M. Lee, Instruction in Journalism in Institu- tions of Higher Education, p. 15-16. In view of this success, it is interesting to read the strictures passed on the idea in 1888 by C. A. Dana, in The Art of Newspaper Making, pp. 12-18, and H. White, “The School of Journalism," North American Revicw, Janu- ary, 1904, 178: 25-32. 68 The School of Journalism in Columbia University on the Pulitzer Foundation opened in September, 1912, with an endowment of $1,000,000. See Talcott Williams, "The School of Journalism," Columbia University Quarterly, June, 1912, 14: 235-248, and his annual reports as Director of the Šchool of Journalism; also, "Teaching Journalism in a Great City," The Independent, August 7, 1913, 75: 313-315. The reasons that led to the establishment of the School are fully stated and the questions and objections of doubters and opponents are answered by Joseph Pulitzer, "The College of Journalism in Columbia University," North American Review, May, 1904, 178: 640-680. See also J. L. Heaton, The Story of a Page, pp. 292-293. Digitized by „Google