THE NIEMAN BEQUEST

An endowment for journalistic purposes, the Wisconsin Supreme Court finds, is not per se to be lumped in the same category as gifts to chorus boys or pipe dreams. One legal obstruction is thus brushed away; others, complicated by taxation, remain tightly snarled.

Although Harvard is but one step nearer to actual acquisition of several million dollars, it is not too early to encourage thorough discussion of the uses to which it might be put. Three approaches seem possible today; the establishment of a Graduate School of Journalism, the opening of a new undergraduate Field of Concentration, or the building upon courses already established. Each suggestion has measurable validity; each is open to sharp criticism. And the question as to what extent the teaching of journalism can be divorced from actual newspaper experience cannot be disentangled from the main theme. Then, too, the will's phraseology must be kept in mind. Even today it is possible to see the loose constructionists and the strict going to the mat about the problem of just what constitutes "the promotion and elevation of journalism".

All of these questions are tremendously important, but the smoke from the discussion should not obscure the goal. The need for better leadership, more honest thinking and a saner intellectual balance particularly in newspapers, is all too clearly evident to students of contemporary periodicals. Somewhere writers should be able to learn the elementary rule of journalistic navigation, that of steering their course straight between bombast and pussyfooting. In the United States a few powerful and unethical newspapers have in the past, and may in the future involve their country in wars and assasinations. The leadership of newspapers has proved at times more potent than that of politicians themselves; at other times, as in the past election, completely futile. Always, however, it has vast potentialities, particularly for developing a new profession with a sound code of ethics, for breeding a new race of statesmen with vision.

Insofar as Harvard can supply an education, it can supply these things. The field is free for a new team of journalists, better drilled in fundamentals and quicker on the ball. It is time to begin thinking about the criteria determinining the use of the Nieman bequest, for this fund may give Harvard the opportunity to call the plays.