and, of the two, he had better make shoes. There are among reporters and collectors of city news many acute and energetic and capable young men. But they do not remain reporters. It is almost equally certain that, though they rise, they seldom rise to the highest literary positions. I hope I shall not be thought to disparage a body of men whom we all respect, who are most useful and indispensable members of their profession, if I add that I have never thought theirs the best path to ultimate distinction or great place in journalism. The reason is plain. The qualities which make a good reporter and those which make a good editor or a great editorial writer are not the same; they are not the same in kind, and excellence in the one branch does not imply excellence in the other by-and-by. I have no time to work this out-each will do that for himself. Therefore it is that I venture to think the maxim "Begin at the beginning" not a good maxim in journalism. Maxims are for the average man. Not one of my readers means to be an average man, or would be content with mediocrity. It is better to turn the sailors' adage against the sailors-better to come in at the cabin windows. If you mean to be a writer, you had better begin by writing. Short-hand is a very useful art, but it is not writing, nor does it tend to the making of good writers.

Considered as a training for the highest journalism, the one advantage of reporting is that it brings you in contact with life, in contact with persons, and with various forms of social and political existence. But the forms of life with which the reporter becomes acquainted are not those which he most needs to know. They are often those of which he had better know as little as possible. If the young journalist will but regard every stage in his career as educational, he will soon discern for himself what helps him and what harms him, what teaches him the things he ought to know, and what loads his mind with a mass of rubbish which only impedes its action.

I speak of reporting as an education for him who means to be a writer. It may none the less be a good apprenticeship to one of the great executive posts on a great journal. I am not competent to say whether it is or not, but everybody is competent to judge of the high talent required for such a post. A good city or

news editor must have great administrative and organizing ability; he must be a good general as well as a good journalist, and such places are, in fact, often filled by men of the most admirable qualities.

So far am I from thinking the work of the reporter or interviewer helpful toward the higher journalism in its literary branches that I would wholly discourage any promising and really ambitious beginner from accepting any place in any office which required of him to collect local news or to report speeches. There will always be men to do that kind of work. It is perfectly honorable when honorably done, but we are trying to find out how a man may best fit himself for the highest places and the highest duties in journalism, and again I say the training of a reporter is not the best training for the highest places. To explain what I mean I will take strong cases-exceptional cases, if you like. The modern reporter of sensations must, for example, approach a good many people on subjects which concern them alone, perhaps in painful circumstances, and often in a way which he will find it hard to reconcile with his own self-respect or the dignity of his profession. He will be expected to force his way, to ask impertinent questions, never to take no for an answer, to consider nothing sacred, nothing impenetrable to his curiosity. His aim in life will be a "beat."

Said one of these reporters, not long since, to a respectable citizen who had resisted his importunities, "Your unwillingness to be questioned exposes you to grave suspicions." Another applied to another respectable citizen to see a certain collection of letters in his possession

so private that it was not supposed their existence was known. Their owner had referred to them once in a private conversation at a dinner table, which a servant, he thought, might have overheard. He declined to show them to the reporter. Said that enterprising person, "But if they are not here, they must be in your country house, and my instructions are to obtain from you a written order to whoever is in charge of your house, saying where these letters are to be found, the key to the desk if they are locked up, and instructions to deliver them all to me." Singularly enough, this editorial mandate was not obeyed by the owner of the letters. Another method is common

A

on papers struggling for notoriety. rumor about somebody, probably discreditable or disagreeable, reaches a newspaper office is brought in, very likely, by some vender of scandal who lives by this trade. It is bought; then a reporter is sent to the person named, and he is asked to confirm or contradict it. He denies it, or refuses to say anything, and supposes that to be the end. "Not at all," says the reporter; we shall in any case print the story. We will also print the fact that you deny it, or refuse to deny it, and leave our readers to judge. you do not explain all the circumstances, they will of course suppose you cannot." And a terror-stricken public submits to this tyrannical inquisition.

If

No reputable journal practises these arts, but they are practised. They may seem extreme cases, or they may not. They are, at any rate, actual cases; these things did happen as I describe them. Are such methods a good preparation for the higher journalism? Are other inquiries, such as even some reputable journals require to be made, a good preparation? I would say to the young journalist who aims at distinction and usefulness and the upper stories two things, neither of which concerns the reporter of the kind I have described:

1. As a journalist, or for the purposes of news-gathering, never go to see anybody. 2. Never ask a question.

The maxims, paradoxical as they may seem, may be followed faithfully by a journalist with such an ambition as I credit him with. He may sometimes depart from them - rarely, however, and always for a reason. But if he cares to have access to the best sources of information, and to earn the confidence of those men in public life whose acquaintance will be of most use to him, he will find these rules golden.

He may, at any rate, abide by them in correspondence, which is a different matter from reporting. That is a subject on which I should be glad to say much, from my own experience and otherwise.

But

I content myself with quoting a recent editorial remark from an able paper outside New York:

It is a field in which the critical, the descriptive, and the discursive faculties receive constant encouragement. A correspondent writing over his own signature is relieved from vexatious oversight, and made to feel the

The war correspondent has long since indicated his place in journalism, and made his individuality felt. So of others. If you go back a generation you will find that in this country a correspondent was expected to confine himself to news. But look at the Sunday cable despatches now sent from London by the company of able men there engaged in the service of American newspapers. They consist chiefly of views, not news. They are critical comments on the events of the week, and valuable because they are critical, and no longer mere summaries of fact. That is what the editor I have quoted calls "essentially journalism."

There is, I will add, one quality essential to the journalist which must indeed be born with him, though it may be much developed by use. I mean instinct, or intuition. He must have flair, a keen scent, both for news and for other things. He must know what the public will want to read about to-morrow morning. There, said one distinguished editor, lies the whole secret. The remark is much too sweeping. It is not the whole secret -it is one secret. But a too broad generalization is always helpful. It directs attention to an idea or a theory, and suggests its own limitations. He must know how a thing will look in print. It often looks very unlike the manuscript, and unlike what the author supposed himself to have in mind. These delicacies of perception are feminine-the possession of them by women may be alleged as a reason why women should make good journalists, as some of them do. since judgment, balance of mind, a capacity for weighing evidence, and the power of discriminating between what is matter of principle and what is merely personal are also necessary to the good editor, the argument for women must not be pushed.

But

Mr. Delane, who for seven-and-thirty years was editor of the Times, had these various qualities in combination, and all of them to a very unusual degree. With what sagacity he conducted that journal is known, though, I may remark, not

was.

fully known, to the outside world. There is perhaps nothing about which the outside world is more curious than the inside of a great newspaper office, and nothing about which the outsider knows less. There is an anecdote of Delane which shows him in full possession of this intuitive gift; or, as we should say in New England, shows what a good guesser he Lord Mayo, Viceroy of India, had been assassinated in 1872. The situation was critical, and there was extreme interest to know who was to be Lord Mayo's successor. Mr. Gladstone was then Prime Minister, and it was never easy to conjecture what Mr. Gladstone might do, especially where a personal question had to be taken into account-judgment of men not being Mr. Gladstone's strong point. Mr. Delane was a great diner-out. That was one way in which he came into con- . tact with life, and in London there are few better ways for the purposes of general politics, and especially of high politics. He met at dinner Sir William Gull, then the leading physician of London. There was a discussion at table upon the effect of climate on constitutions. "By-the-way," said Sir William, "Lord Northbrook was asking me to-day whether I thought the climate of India would suit him." The subject droppedno more was said. Mr. Delane drove straight to the Times office, and the Times next morning announced that Lord Northbrook had been appointed Viceroy of India. His sole authority was this casual remark at dinner. Lord Northbrook, who was then Undersecretary for War, had not been mentioned as a candidate for the post. To name him was something more than a splendid guess it was an act of courage which success justified. How great a part courage plays in the conduct of a great journal is best known to those who conduct it. An editor might take Danton's maxim for his own-de l'audace, et encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace.

Among intending journalists none is more interesting than he who resolves on devoting himself to a newspaper life because he has ideas and convictions which he wishes to impress on the world. I am loath to say one word which should chill his enthusiasm. It is only by enthusiasm that most of the great things have been done in the world. Still, even the enthusiast must consider the relation

between means and ends. Let us suppose him launched in journalism, with his predominating idea that the newspaper is a pulpit, whence he may preach the gospel to all mankind. How is he to mount his pulpit? How is he to gain leave to preach? We must presume it is his own ideas that he wishes to advocate, not the ideas of somebody else. He can hardly expect to obtain control of a paper all at once. If he has the money to buy one or create one, that is a different matter, but that is not the way in which most young men enter upon a career. They may end in that way, and even that is unusual. The editor himself is not always able to say what he wants to say. The proprietor looks over his shoulder as he writes-the views of the editor must, or, at any rate, do, often conform to his. The counting-house has been known so far to mistake its true functions as to consider itself an authority in the editorial room-such and such a policy, in the view of the business manager, is injurious to the paper, reduces its circulation or cripples its advertising, and he therefore remonstrates with the enthusiast, supposing he remains an enthusiast, who has nominal control over the editorial columns of the paper. What is the generous young soul who wants to convert the world to do in these perplexing circumstances? If he yields, the conversion of the world has to wait. If he resists, the counting-house is only too apt to carry its point, and the editor departs, and in that way also the process of regeneration is delayed, and the editor himself may not easily find another paper to edit. I do not put this as a universal case. Nothing in journalism is universal. But it is a possibility which the crusader must take into account.

I am afraid that this business view of journalism must be carried farther still. Not long before Matthew Arnold, then on his second visit to the United States, was sailing for home, he wrote to his daughter:

The great relief will be to cease seeing the American newspapers. Here one must read them, for through them only can one get the European news, but their badness and ignobleness are beyond belief. They are the worst

feature in the life of the United States.

That was written more than ten years ago. Shall we ask ourselves whether, since then, the American newspapers have

replied, never defended himself, never brought an action for libel. His character was and is his best defence-unless the wantonness and bitterness of the attack were perhaps his best defence.

But I will take a broader issue. The two governments of the United States and Great Britain lately negotiated a Treaty of Arbitration. This treaty was framed with such skill by the American Secretary of State and the British ambassador that it promised to provide a workable scheme of permanent and automatic arbitration. It met most of the objections of those friends of arbitration in specific cases who had not thought a general treaty likely to be useful. It was, indeed, a monument to the diplomatic capacity of Sir Julian Pauncefote and Mr. Olney. The President sent it to the Senate for ratification. The whole country ratified it in advance. The press of the whole country, with few important exceptions, approved it. The Senate hesitated, and began to tamper with the treaty. The press remonstrated. The whole force, or nearly the whole force, of the most important and powerful papers throughout the United States was brought to bear on the Senate. It proved futile. The Senate gave no heed to the press, but went its own way, "amended " the life out of the treaty, wrecked it, left it a dead and empty thing. The Senate, in other words, either defied or entirely disregarded the press in a matter as to which the influence of the press might have been expected to be decisive. Great discredit fell upon the Senate, and to this the press contributed, but the penalty would have been nearly the same without its help. It has often been said that the press is powerful in proportion to the accuracy and energy with which it interprets public opinion. But there was a case where beyond doubt the press did understand what the public wanted, and did declare the wishes of the great major ity of the people of this country, and especially of the best people. Yet it failed to control or guide the Senate; it seems doubtful whether it had any influence at all in the deliberations in that extraordinary band of legislators.

If the editor of one or another of those journals which confuse circulation and influence would ask any of the represent ative men with whom he comes in contact what they think about the power of the press, he would probably be aston

ished by their answers. They will tell him, or many of them will, that they have ceased to pay much attention to what his paper says. They once did. Why do they no longer? They will perhaps tell him why. Perhaps he knows without being told. There are, of course, journals which still retain their old authority in matters of opinion, or some of it. A comparison between their methods and those of the journals which have lost their authority, or never possessed it, will explain a good deal. The journal which is honest, able, consistent, really in earnest, loyal to its own principles - it is necessary to have principles in order to be loyal to them—and loyal to the public, such a journal still has authority, still wields an influence.

We journalists are much too apt to take a journalistic view. We sit inside the newspaper office and look out upon the world from its windows. They are often very high; a clear, distinct view of what passes on the earth below is not to be had. The glass in the window is sometimes discolored; perhaps sometimes the eye is itself jaundiced. Whether that be so or not, there is in all professions a tendency to judge of matters by a professional standard. To the lawyer the book of mankind is the statute-book; the rules of court are to him rules of conduct; he measures the obligations of men to each other by their conformity to the written law; he is but too ready to believe that if a thing is legally permissible, it cannot be morally wrong. man would not be a clergyman if he did not hold the ecclesiastical standard high. Journalist, lawyer, clergyman-each of them needs to be something more than journalist, lawyer, clergyman. He needs to be a man of the world also.

The clergy

The more successful the journalist is, the more likely is he to be warped by the influences about him, to be the victim of his own prosperity, and the more useful to him will be the independent judgment of the outer world on his work and his methods of work. A glance at his ledger or monthly balance-sheet, a comparison between the circulation of his paper last month and this, an increase in the number of columns of advertising-none of these is decisive. Let him go into the market-place; let him ask the opinion of the competent minority. The opinion would sometimes astonish him. The more