THE DAILY MIRRORS

There is no absolute whereby to measure the rise and fall of the level of college journalism, if any. Periodically there arises the question of whither is the undergraduate newspaper going; the medium of judgment chosen by observers is the editorial pages of college papers. The latest criticism, from the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, is an epitome of all that has been said on the subject lately. It asserts that college editors fail to harmonize the tone of their editorial columns with the responsibility that is theirs by virtue of their place as representatives of the college in print. Cynicism, flippancy, and disregard of conventionalities are specific charges.

That there is general truth in all this no one familiar with the run of college newspapers will deny. Critics are inclined to take a lenient view of the causes; some say that the demands of academic work and the difficulty of producing thoughtful, readable editorials day after day are responsible, and others that the lack of constructive work is due to the effort to make good reading matter at the expense of common sense and often of dignity.

The striving for popular readibility is one side of the picture. College newspapers vary with the college even more than do larger papers with the community. Where the tone of the college is one of popular appeal, the note struck in the paper will be like it. But there are colleges which have reputations of high seriousness which are often not borne out in mature productions in print.

The failure of the papers in these places may generally be laid to a too high sense of duty. Conscious of the distinction conferred upon them by a row of linotype machines at their bidding, they publish definite opinions on questions of supreme importance. Too often there is no firm foundation of fact, and because disapproval is the easiest course for misinformation, the result is the cynicism which has become a byword.

After all, it is hardly fair to arraign the undergraduate press alone for superficiality. A flow of printer's ink is the only division between the mass of students and the student editor. If cynic flippancy and supreme omniscience till the editorial pages, they are only the expression of one mind or the others of ill-directed curiosity that misses the value of circumspection, typical of the undergraduate attitude of today. The papers have become truer mirrors of current ideas than they ever tried to be.