The newspaper and literature have inseparable associations, indeed , Boynton finds that “ between literature and 'the higher journalism ' the partition is extremely thin ,” 43 while Shaw regards them as identical, — " journalism is the highest form of literature; for all the highest literature is journalism ." 44 These judgments seem justified when it is remembered how many men of letters
have gone into journalism and have carried with them the high standards of writing that in many cases still prevail, how many
journalists have developed into littérateurs,how many havemade permanent contributions to both fields of writing.45 From the
time of Defoe, Addison , and Steele to that of Bryant, Lowell and Curtis, Aldrich and Howells, — to name no more many writers distinguished in literature have brought literary distinc
tion to the periodicals with which they were connected . In the early colonial period in America, literature was largely
ecclesiastic , secular literature received little encouragement, the news-sheets were crude, inter-colonial communication was ir
regular, European news arrived six months late, “ criticism of the government was not in order," homilies were not needed 43 H . W . Boynton , Journalism and Literature, p . 19. 4 " Nevertheless, journalism is the highest form of literature; for all the highest literature is journalism . The writer who aims at producing the platitudes which are 'not for an age, but for all time' has his reward in
being unreadable in all ages ; whilst Plato and Aristophanes trying to knock some sense into the Athens of their day , Shakspear peopling that same
Athens with Elizabethan mechanics and Warwickshire hunts, Ibsen photo graphing the local doctors and vestrymen of a Norwegian parish , Carpaccio painting the life of St. Ursula exactly as if she were a lady living in the
next street to him , are still alive and at home everywhere among the dust and ashes of thousands of academic, punctilious, archaeologically correct
men of letters and art who spent their lives haughtily avoiding the journal ist's vulgar obsession with the ephemeral.” - G . B . Shaw , The Sanity of Art, p . 4 .
J. S. L . Strachey answers negatively the question, " Are Journalism and Literature Incompatible ? ” — Fortnightly Review , April, 1909, n . s. 85 : 734 - 742.
The subject is also considered by T . H . S. Escott, “ Literature and Journalism ," Fortnightly Review , January, 1912, n . s. 91 : 115 - 130 . .
46 A writer in the New York Nation once noted that the Saturday Review at first intended to have as writers, not professional journalists, but uni versity scholars, lawyers, clergymen and others of similar tastes and quali fications. While it was impossible to keep up the plan in its entirety , since
a journalmust be edited by a journalist, it has always had a large infusion of writers not distinctively newspaper men . — “ The London Weekly News
papers,” The Nation , October 14, 1880, 31: 270- 271.
