consult the essays of Elmer Davis. For the essay of pure whimsy reinforced by extraordinary observation and colored with tenderness there are the several volumes of Robert Cortes Holliday, in whom, at every reading, I catch the ring of genius; he certainly has earned his place in the entourage of Charles Lamb. The essay, which very soon after its beginning grew to be anything and everything, from sermon to dream, from epigram to pamphlet, has its examples among our writers today, in the pure type of every genre, and in almost every blend.

And as all the forms of the essay have survived, there has survived also—and to my mind that is of far greater importance—the spirit of the essay, asserting itself in every form though in varying degree, and with but few exceptions. To say that there is a single thing which may be called the spirit of the essay would seem at first to contradict the thesis I have been stressing, namely, that the essay may be anything and everything; may be Montaigne or Macaulay. What I mean is that, taking this literature of short or comparatively short prose, we do find that for the corpus as a whole there is a single spiritual trait; and that trait is moderation, restraint, the sense of proportion. Montaigne's skepticism has been a little more than enough to outweigh Macaulay's dogmatism. The amateur talents of a Lamb mix with the wisdom of an Emerson or the specialized knowledge of a Brownell to make the essay, in the total, more or less incurably and beautifully amateur, tentative, wandering, wondering. Almost it seems inevitable that when a man sits down to write an essay he finds it impossible always to say "I know it all." The hereditary virtue of "What know I?" persists; the sense of modesty; the sense of proportion.

Now a sense of proportion is something to be thankful for today. Mr. Shepard has grasped this outstanding virtue of the essay when he remarks of the pieces in his collection that, hard-hitting though most of them are, they cannot be said to belong to "the Literature of Despair." You will find plenty of despair lying around today in the novels and in the biographies and the Outlines. But in the contemporary essay you will find the corrective and sometimes the antidote to that despair. Take as an example Aldous Huxley. In his novels life is disillusion and disenchantment. In his essays

life manages to keep a good many of its old truths and its old values. To put it quite roughly, Aldous Huxley in his essays is much more sane, much more faithful to the truth of things, much more guarded in his affirmations and denials, than the people in his novels are. Is it the spirit of Montaigne looking over his shoulder and whispering, "What, after all, know you?" Is it the spirit of Addison politely suggesting that this is a world full of many kinds of people and a life full of all sorts of values, and one should not be too rough? Is it the spirit of Lamb lisping, "Well, now, really?" This much is certain: that in an age of disenchantment and revolt and "debunkage" it is in the essays that you must chiefly look for the sense of humor and the sense of proportion. Always excepting Mr. Mencken, a modern essay setting forth the full thesis expounded by Sinclair Lewis in Elmer Gantry is inconceivable. The ancestral spirits of the essay simply will not allow it. When you sit down to the composition of an essay, of a most modern, contemporaneous essay, something within you urges you to stop and look and listen and think twice.

FIDDLERS IN THE FOURTH ESTATE

EDWIN R. VAN KLEECK

Study has assumed so subordinate a place in our educational program that he dares much who advances any addition to the distractions commonly camouflaged as "extra-curricular activities." So before setting down these thoughts concerning journalism in high school and college, it is perhaps meet to emphasize that nothing new, nothing original, nothing additional is proposed. School journalism is here and is soundly entrenched. Despite its faults, which are not few, it has merits. It has also undeveloped possibilities for improvement. It has latent values not realized and probably not even sensed by most of the young hopefuls who, even as you and I, seek every now and then to make their thoughts immortal and seize printer's ink, exchanges, scissors and paste. More is made of journalism in secondary schools and colleges every year. Possibly this is due partly to the growth general to all enterprises which serve to put off the bothersome lessons or to delay acquaint

ance with what a wise professor calls "intra-curricular passivities." But it is more because of a growing appreciation by school men of the help which this work can give, especially in the study of English.

What are the claims advanced for journalistic study and work? In what measure are these realized? How may the work become more productive of benefit?

News-writing and editing, a text tells us, will "stimulate the use of good English." School newspaper men will learn to "meet and approach all kinds of people." Editors will develop "executive ability." Of course, if the student's aim is to become a journalist, the work is also vocational. The newspaper, properly conducted, will "aid the school, the community," etc., etc.

This is a rather large amount to be bitten off by any subject; indeed, could the first twelve or even the first sixteen years of formal education accomplish all this, and in addition give the informational background also necessary to efficient human existence, we should have fewer tirades on what is wrong with our schools. The fondness of teachers to theorize more or less impractically about the ideals and accomplishments of their own subjects is so familiar to us, however, that none of us takes their claims too seriously. Perhaps the praise of journalism quoted above is no more extravagant than that for science, or the classics, or mathematics, or the other divisions of study.

Most of the benefits set forth above probably can be gained in other ways than by publishing newspapers. The student who is president of-say-the French Club, or who sells advertising space for the year book, or who represents the Y.M.C.A. at "get-togethers," may reasonably expect to "meet and approach all kinds of people" with all the finesse attributed to the amateur journalist. Any executive position in the overorganized life of modern educational institutions is as likely to develop latent executive ability as is the editorial chair of the school paper. All student organizations, if they approach the ideals expounded in their constitutions, will "aid the school, the community," etc. If the president of the French Club intends to teach French or to manage a shop in Montreal, or if the young gentleman who beguiles dollars from tradesmen's

pockets for advertising space in the year book exists later by selling anything, sardines or Scriptures, his extra-curricular activity has likewise been vocational.

To "stimulate the use of good English," then, is the only property left this journalistic panacea for educational ills. It is not my assertion or belief that writing for a school paper is the only way to effect this stimulation, or even that it is the best way. Writing for literary magazines and annuals, and for courses in English composition, might give this facility, although, as everybody knows, it frequently does not. What I should like to show is that newspaper writing, properly conducted, develops the power to produce passable prose. I believe that it does this because it supplies the pupil with a motive for writing acceptably; that, in professional lingo, it "motivates" good English composition. If besides doing this, newswriting can in some measure spur the pupil's hidden talents for meeting people and managing affairs and aiding the school and the community, so much the better.

A sketchy analysis of the reasons behind this motivation makes two facts obvious. The first is that the desire to see one's name in print is nearly universal. This is a generalization with obvious exceptions and qualifications, of course. Nobody wants his name linked with a murder case or a divorce action or with the other lumps in the salt of a human and erring society that are "page-one stuff" for the newspapers. But the talents of most people lie in a different direction from homicide and polygyny; hence the average man is not offended to see his name in print, even though he often conceives it correct to pretend annoyance.

Now, the second fact is that for the student the thrill of authorship is to seeing his name in the paper as getting an "A" is to getting an expected "C." The printed name is only a sugary taste; authorship is nectar. That is the chief reason why a student will labor long over the seemingly thankless task of grinding out copy for the school paper. The fact that his name does not appear above each story when it finally blossoms in print is a fly in the ointment of his pleasure, but it is an inconsequential fly and does not bother him much. He may have a minor motive for slaving thus, to be sure; he may want to become a "prominent student" or a "campus

leader" or to gain some equally innocuous title, and his fancy may mistakenly tell him that the journalistic road to this is as easy as any. But that is a reason for "going out for the paper" which is outside the pale of stimulating good English, and one on which we therefore need not elaborate. So long as the student can recognize in the shreds left by the copyreader some semblance of what he wrote, contentment is still his; the motivation is still moving.

Why does competition seem so irksome a bother and so unproductive a task to many students? It seems to me that it is because these students think there is nothing to write about and that there is no reason for writing even when a suitable subject is available. Accordingly, so long as they can get a passing grade, they feel little urge to attempt excellence. The motivation afforded by preparing material for publication gives the pupil a reason for writing; the happenings which he describes supply subjects; the relentless system in practice on well-conducted student papers, which keeps only the best material out of the waste-basket, whets his interest and spurs him to improvement.

Before he writes his second story, he finds that time and good white paper are worth too much to permit circumlocutions. If his English is not concise, the copyreader makes it so. That tyrant may ruin the most fondly composed phrases (and sometimes even make the grammar doubtful), but he will condense. After a little, the student finds that one word is almost always better than a phrase, that for every story which gets into the paper two are thrown away. Before many more articles leave his pen, he learns that a simple style is as essential as concise diction. He finds that while he need not write down to the moron mentality, his copy must be comprehensible to the average man or woman. As the narrow columns of his paper make him substitute a few short words for many long ones, the wide audience for whom he writes demands that he use familiar and definite, rather than uncommon and vague, words.

These are the mechanics of news-writing. These will bring a clear style, but surely a newspaper would be a spineless thing if all its reporters had nothing more than ability to write briefly and simply. The student reporter realizes that his rivals can attain this skill as easily as he. He who seeks distinction must therefore culti