If I could have my way, every young man who is going to be a newspaperman, and who is not absolutely rebellious against it, should learn Greek and Latin after the good old fashion. I had rather take a young fellow who knows the “Ajax” of Sophocles, and has read Tacitus, and can scan every ode of Horace--I would rather take him to report a prize-fight or a spelling-match, for instance, than to take one who has never had those advantages. At the same time, the cultivated man is not in every case the best reporter. One of the best I ever knew was a man who could not spell four words correctly to save his life, and his verb did not always agree with the subject in person and number; but he always got the fact so exactly, and he saw the picturesque, the interesting, the important aspect of it so vividly, that it was worth another man’s while, who possessed the knowledge of grammar and spelling, to go over the report and write it out. Now, that was a man who had genius; he had a talent the most indubitable, and he got handsomely paid in spite of his lack of grammar, because after his work had been done over by a scholar it was really beautiful. But any man who is sincere and earnest and not always thinking about himself can be a good reporter. He can learn to ascertain the truth; he can acquire the habit of seeing. When he looks at a fire, what is the most important thing about that fire? Here, let us say, are five houses burning; which is the greatest? Whose store is that which is burning? And who has met with the greatest loss? Has any individual perished in the conflagration? Are there any very interesting circumstances about the fire? How did it occur? Was it like Chicago, where a cow kicked over a spirit-lamp and burned up the city? All these things the reporter has to judge about. He is the eye of the paper, and he is there to see which is the vital fact in the story, and to produce it, tell it, write it out. Dana saw the usefulness to a reporter of certain qualities which are acquired neither at school nor in the office: In the first place, he must know the truth when he hears it and sees it. There are a great many men who are born without that faculty, unfortunately. But there are some men that a lie cannot deceive; and that is a very precious gift for a reporter, as well as for anybody else. The man who has it is sure to live long and prosper; especially if he is able to tell the truth which he sees, to state the fact or the discovery that he has been sent out after, in a clear and vivid and interesting manner.