Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Newspaper Worker, 1906: Designed for All Who Write, but Especially Addressed to the Reporter Who May Have Only a Vague Notion of the Aims, Scope and Requirements of His Profession
Ramsay in his Life of Washington notes the remarkable fact that men on the patriotic side in the American Revolution, who could scarcely write their names when the struggle with the mother country began, were capable at its close of producing letters that practiced, educated writers need not be ashamed to acknowledge.
This is a striking, historic instance of what perseverance, intelligently directed, may accomplish. These men had to write so their language would be understood and admit of none save an exact interpretation. They wrote with care, and with strict attention to accuracy. They wasted no time on frills or cheap attempts at ornament They learned almost intuitively to call things by their right names, and they avoided ambiguity because they knew that a misinterpretation of their meaning might lead to disaster and ruin.
There can be no manner of doubt that these almost unlettered patriots carefully read over and freely criticized what they wrote, and that they became exact and explicit in expressing themselves, through sheer necessity of occasions.
Washington was himself in the strictest sense of the word a self-educated man. He lost his father at an early age and his days in school were so few that he began life without so much as a rudimentary knowledge of English grammar.
Bancroft, the historian, dealing with this period of Washington's life, remarks that the great liberator applied himself with care to everything that he undertook and that his preserved papers show how he almost imperceptibly gained the power of writing correctly and of "expressing himself with clearness and directness, often with felicity of language and grace."
These are by no means isolated examples. Journalism can show equally remarkable instances of good, graphic writers developing out of crude, unpromising material.
A case in point: An ambitious young man of little or no education who had tried successively driving team, soliciting life insurance and even bartending, became possessed with the belief that newspaper work is ideal and that through it he could achieve his aim in life.
He obtained a position on a daily newspaper in one of the inland New England cities. The first story that he wrote had concern with a street fight for which the supposed aggressor was arrested. In writing the story the new reporter had such expressions as this: "The prizoneer i witnizzis sae was not at fawlt. His nabors give him a gud nahn."
Andrew Carnegie and his spelling reformers might have hailed him as brother, but the city editor decided that the new man had missed his vocation and frankly told him so.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
