JOURNALISM, COLLEGE. Like the system of Greek letter fraternities, college journalism.. embracing those periodicals edited and published wholly or partly by undergraduates, and devoted to student interests. is a form of student activity which is almost entirely restricted to American institutions. It is differentiated from the de partmental and /Alicia! publications of the uni versity by the fact that its sphere all the varied interests of the student body, and not alone the educational. and that it provides the channel for the expression of student opinion, formerly voiced through the oration and the de bating society. Students in the English univer sities have from time to time attempted to estab lish publications similar to college papers in the United States. tile most notable of which, The Snob, was edited by Thaekeray while at Cam bridge in 1829. Other sporadic efforts in time direction of college journalism in England have rarely lasted longer than the college life of their original projectors. The Oxford and Cambridge undergraduates' journal is little more than an othieial calendar, and is in no sense a college• paper as the term is understood in America. In the United States the college paper originally took the form of a periodical devoted to the publication of essays. serious poems, and criti cisms, and often supplemented the literary so cieties. With the broadening of the student life there came a change in time character of the.
periodicals until to-day the students of nearly every American college support from one to a dozen periodicals. In recent years the institu tion has worked downward to the preparatory schools as well, and many of these maintain successful school papers modeled on the college publications.
The first American college periodical was the Gazette, published at Dartmouth in the year 1800. Daniel Webster, of the class of 1801, was its editor. The Yale Literary Cabinet was pub lished in 1806 by the senior class of that year, and this was followed by the Harvard Lampoon in 1812. The oldest college paper now in exist ence is the Yale Literary Magazine, which dates from 1836. In the twenty years preceding that date there were born and died at Yale, besides the Literary Cabinet, the Athenwum, Crayon, Sitting-Room, Students' Companion, Gridiron, and Medley. Next to the Yale `Lit.,' the paper which has had the longest existence is the Nassau Literary Magazine, founded in Princeton in 1842. The number of publications which have enjoyed only a temporary existence during the hundred years of college journalism is unknown. but it
must have been very large. According to the best information obtainable, Amherst now sup ports 4 college papers, Brown 4. California 5, Columbia 9, Cornell 7, Harvard 10, Michigan 7, Minnesota 4, Pennsylvania 8. Princeton 5, Leland Stanford 5, Tulane 5, Virginia 3, Williams 4, and Yale 8, and about the same ratio in number of publications to the attendance is maintained at other colleges.
College journalism is represented by periodicals devoted to (1) literary matter exclusively; (2) news and some literary matter; (3) news and comment; (4) the comic and burlesque; (5) his torical record; (6) the interests of certain de partments or professional schools; and (7) the interests of the alumni. The typical forms are the daily, weekly, monthly, and annual, though there are many intermediate forms, like the semi weekly, hi-weekly, or quarterly. The most pop ular forms of the college paper to-day are the daily and weekly, the weekly performing the same service in the smaller college that the daily does in the university, that of a newspaper pure and simple. The first venture in the field of daily journalism was made by the Echo, now Crimson. in 1879, and it was followed im mediately by the Cornell Daily Sun and the Yale Daily News. A college daily is now published in about a dozen universities of the country, including, besides the three already mentioned, the Brown Herald (1S92); the Daily Californian, organized as a weekly; the Berk!cyan, in 1874 and as a daily in 1897: the University of Miehi flan Daily (1890) : the University of Minnesota Daily (1900) ; the Pennsylvanian (1883) ; the Daily Prineetonian: the Daily Palo Alto. at Stanford University; the Wisconsin Cardinal: the Daily Maroon, at the University of Chicago (1902) ; and the Columbia Spectator. the suc cessor of the Acta Columbiana, and for many years a bimonthly, reorganized as a daily in 1902. The Tulane Spirit is an example of dailies that have had a brief existence, while the Scar let and Black (Iowa College) and the Brown and White (Lehigh University) are examples of semi weekly papers which will eventually fall into the class of dailies. The typical daily is a four page paper, devoted entirely to news, and is an important factor in student affairs. The Cali fornian is a six-page paper, twice a week. The circulation ranges from SOO to 2500 copies a day, with substantial profits.