s have
ing it was issued August 19, 1869. “ This curious document” stated able character. The scholarships were to be held two years ,were
to include tuition and all college charges , and each holder was to “ labor one hour per day in the line of his profession .” The
typographical unions in the Southern States were asked to nomi nate the candidates, but the request evoked little response " and
the newspapers became facetious over a programme which was inherently absurd. . . . The practical journalists, who had
worked their own way upward by diligent application, knew the impossibility of learning the lessons of Journalism within the walls of a collegiate institution .” 59 Butat least one practical journalist thought he knew otherwise and Whitelaw Reid in an address before the faculty and stu dents of New York University, April 4 , 1872, urged preparation for journalism as the most effectivemeans of raising the standard of the profession.60
For the most part the idea was received by the press itself with scant favor if not with positive derision , — there was some
thing of the feeling that the journalist, like the poet, is born , not made and " that if a higher power does not endow him with (the
necessary qualities ) he may apply himself in vain in an effort to acquire them .” But no school of journalism ever dreamed of educating as journalists those who have no aptitude for the profession , - artists do not apply for admission to schools of
medicine, or lawyers seek training in schools of engineering. This conventional objection , however , long carried weight and it wasnot until 1893 that the first courses in journalism were given
in this country,61 while in 1894, courses in journalism were given at the University of Lille and in 1895 a course of lectures on the “ History of the Press and Journalism in Germany " was given at recently been reprinted by Washington and Lee University, Bulletin , Vol. XX , No. 8 , April 15, 1921. It is hoped to re -establish the school in September , 1923.- Letter from
President Henry Louis Smith , April 20 , 1922. 59 A . Maverick, Henry J. Raymond and the New York Times for Thirty
Years, pp. 355 -356. 60 " Journalism as a Career,” American and English Studies, II , 193– 227. 61 J . M . Lee , Instruction in Journalism in Institutions of Higher Education , pp . 10 - 11.
