COLLEGE JOURNALISM.

THERE is an article under this title in the October number of Scribner's, which contains much that is of interest to those who read college papers, as well as to those who write for them. We give below some of the information contained in it.

In the first place, it is estimated that at the present time there are at least two hundred papers and magazines in this country devoted to college interests and conducted by college students. As each of these papers has a board of from six to ten editors, they alone form quite a large body. The average circulation is about five hundred copies.

The first college paper was the Gazette, issued at Dartmouth in 1800, chiefly memorable as containing numerous articles by Daniel Webster. This was followed in 1806 by the Literary Cabinet, published at Yale. The oldest of college papers now living is the Yale Literary Magazine, established in 1836. Secretary Evarts was one of the founders of this magazine, and D. G. Mitchell, Dr. J. P. Thompson, Senator Ferry, and President A. D. White have been among its editors.

The writer says of Harvard's papers, that, though they have been less numerous than Yale's, they indicate (considered as a whole) greater literary ability, and have had greater influence on college opinion. The Harvard Lyceum was the first, founded in 1810, with Edward Everett as one of its editors. After its death the next paper was the Harvard Register, among the editors of which were President Felton, George S. Hillard, and Robert C. Winthrop. In 1830 appeared the Collegian, notable as containing the contributions of Oliver Wendell Holmes, then a student in the Law School. The Collegian was succeeded by Harvardiana, on which James Russell Lowell first employed his pen. In 1854 appeared the Harvard Magazine, with Phillips Brooks among its editors; and this was followed in 1866 by the Advocate.

There is, indeed, quite an array of distinguished names among the former editors of college papers. It is an inspiring thought to the young writer that Webster, Everett, and the Rev. Joseph Cook all began their great careers in this capacity.

After a complimentary notice of the Lampoon, the writer goes on to speak of the purposes of a college paper and its evils:-

"The purposes which the college paper accomplishes in American college life are numerous and important. It is, in the first place, a mirror of undergraduate sentiment, and is either scholarly or vulgar, frivolous or dignified, as are the students who edit and publish it. A father, therefore, debating where to educate his son, would get a clearer idea of the type of moral and intellectual character which a college forms in her students from a year's file of their fortnightly paper, than from her annual catalogue or the private letters of her professors. To the college officers, also, it is an indicator of the pulse of college opinion. .... The college journal is, indeed, as a distinguished professor recently said of the paper of his college, 'the outstanding member of the college faculty.' ....

"But to these excellent purposes and characteristics of the college paper are joined two evils which must be weighed in forming any just estimate of its worth and usefulness. The first evil is that the student's editorial duties are likely to exhaust his energies, and thus to unfit him for his regular college work. .... The other danger to which the young editor is exposed is that of forming a faulty style."

The article concludes as follows:-

"The college paper is essentially an American production. The German universities have no publication of the sort, and the English universities of Oxford and Cambridge have no journal that precisely corresponds to the American college paper."