Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 February 1887 — THE JOURNALIST. [ARTICLE]

THE JOURNALIST.

George Parsons Lathrop, in the Chautauquan: The chief requisite for beginners in journalism may be summed up thus: 1. A good English education. Learn first to write English; I mean plain, straight, quick Saxon, sturdy and lithe as a sapling. Let your Latin and Greek adornments come in afterward. Study the history of the world, of the United States and Great Britain and Ireland; and study everything else that you conveniently can. Drill yourself in writing swift, sharp, vivid, yet graceful accounts of everything that comes under your notice, putting it picturesquely, but never at the cost of clearness and brevity. 2. Common sense. 3. Good judgment of the relative importance of subjects. 4. Obedience, patience, punctuality. 5. In spite of attaining to all these virtues, don’t be a prig. However much knowledge your brain may hold, never do or say anything which will lead the wise to charge you with being touched by the malady known as “big headconceit, the wise call it.