Bill Nye and Boomerang: Or, The Tale of a Meek-Eyed Mule, and Some Other Literary GemsNye, Bill
General
Bill Nye and Boomerang: Or, The Tale of a Meek-Eyed Mule, and Some Other Literary Gems
Nye, Bill
American wit and humor
|A number of friends having personally asked me to express an opinion
upon the matter of an established school of journalism, as spoken of
by ex-May or Henry C. Robinson, of Hartford, Connecticut, and many more
through the West who are strangers to me personally, having written me
to give my views upon the subject, I have consented in so far that I
will undertake a simple synopsis of what the course should embrace.
I most heartily indorse the movement, if it may be called such at this
early stage. Knowing a little of the intricacies of this branch of the
profession, I am going to state fully my belief as to its importance,
and the necessity for a thorough training upon it. We meet almost
everywhere newspaper men who are totally unfitted for the high office
of public educators through the all-powerful press. The woods is full
of them. We know that not one out of a thousand of those who are to-day
classed as journalists is fit for that position.
I know that to be the case, because people tell me so.
I cannot call to mind to-day, in all my wide journalistic acquaintance,
a solitary man who has not been pronounced an ass by one or more of my
fellow-men. This is indeed terrible state of affairs.
In many instances these harsh criticisms are made by those who do not
know, without submitting themselves to a tremendous mental strain, the
difference between a "lower case" q and the old Calvinistic doctrine of
unanimous damnation, but that makes no difference; the true journalist
should strive to please the masses. He should make his whole life a
study of human nature and an earnest effort to serve the great reading
world collectively and individually.
This requires a man, of course, with similar characteristics and the
same general information possessed by the Almighty but who would be
willing to work at a much more moderate salary.
The reader will instantly see how difficult it is to obtain this class
of men. Outside of the mental giant who writes these lines and two or
three others, perhaps----
But never mind. I leave a grateful world to say that, while I map out a
plan for the ambitious young journalist who might be entering upon
the broad arena of newspaperdom, and preparing himself at a regularly
established school for that purpose.
Let the first two years be devoted to meditation and prayer. This will
prepare the young editor for the surprise and consequent profanity which
in a few years he may experience when he finds in his boss editorial
that God is spelled with a little g, and the peroration of the article
has been taken out and carefully locked up between a death notice and
the announcement of the birth of a cross-eyed infant.
The ensuing five years should be spent in becoming familiar with the
surprising and mirth-provoking orthography of the English language.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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