graduate curriculum, which is at present somewhat lacking in variety and offers little freedom of choice to students who have already taken undergraduate work in the School. The provision of graduate courses for a comparatively small number of students is always expensive, and progress in this direction must be gradual, but the need for it should not be forgotten. In addition to the degrees conferred in course recorded above, the University at the Commencement of 1924 bestowed honorary degrees upon three distinguished journalists -Mr. Victor Fremont Lawson, of the Chicago Daily News; Mr. Adolph Ochs, of The New York Times; and Mr. Melville Elijah Stone, of the Associated Press. This was regarded by the Journalism staff not only as a compliment to the profession of journalism, but indirectly as a recognition of the work done by the School, with which Mr. Lawson and Mr. Stone are associated as members of the Advisory Board. Various tendencies of importance to journalism as a profession have attracted public attention during the year. The merging of the New York Herald with the New York Tribune, which took place just when the members of the class of 1924 were beginning to look for positions upon their graduation, created a feeling of anxiety as to the employment situation which was not dispelled until the end of the academic year, when most of the men obtained engagements either in or out of town, the establishment of the New York Bulletin having afforded some relief from the temporary and local restriction of openings. Of the students who took the B.Lit. degree this year, five received graduate scholarships, and about twenty have up to the time of writing obtained professional employment on newspapers, news associations or magazines. The newspapers on which positions were secured before or immediately after graduation included the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Christian Science Monitor, Jersey Journal, New York Bulletin, New York Times, Paterson Call, and the Wall Street Journal.

In its broader aspect, the merger of the Herald and the Tribune is significant. As long ago as 1886 the late Joseph Pulitzer said: "There are fewer papers in New York today

than there were ten years ago. Ten years from this time, I fancy, there will be fewer still, notwithstanding the fact that in the meantime the population will have largely increased. The fittest will survive. The cause of centralization is simple. Competition begets excellence. Papers now cover every field. They never were so good as they are now, though I believe that they are still only half developed. The people, becoming accustomed to the best, will be satisfied with nothing less. Yet to give them the best means an enormous outlay of money. It is and will continue to be only the possessors of enormous capital who can afford the necessary expenditures. So each large city will have only a very few great papers and everybody will take them. Of course, interests are so diverse and prejudices and sincere convictions so varied that every large community will give a living support to minor cheap papers, but these will not be the real journals of dignity, enterprise and positive influence. The real journals of power will be few."

Dr. Talcott Williams, the revered first Director of the School, in his annual address in chapel to the graduating class, stated his conviction that for several years the number of professional journalists in the United States has not increased. The probabilities are that it will not advance in the next few years, the increase in the population being about balanced by the decrease in the number of newspapers. We shall have fewer newspapers, with wider circulation, and the salaries of the editorial and reporting staffs will be a comparatively small amount in the total expenditure. As it will be of increasing importance that the editorial and reporting work should be well done, it may reasonably be hoped that there will be a constant demand for capable and well-trained journalists. The policy of the School, in endeavoring to turn out a moderate number of really competent men and women rather than a large number of merely mediocre ones, is therefore justified by the conditions of the profession and it is at the same time in accordance with the high ideals Joseph Pulitzer had in view when he planned the foundation of the School.

The issue of how far this and other schools of journalism have succeeded in forwarding newspaper work on its way to become a profession, was raised in an article entitled “Is Journalism a Profession?" published on May 13th, by the editor of the Christian Science Monitor. This editorial provoked from Mr. William Allen White, editor of the Emporia Gazette, a response in the course of which he said: "Until the people of this country get it well in their heads that journalism is a profession which must be licensed and controlled, as the medical and legal professions are licensed and controlled, there can be no freedom of the press which is not liable to great abuses. When the newspaper business is socially controlled as medicine and law are, the freedom of our newspapers will be an asset. As it is, our freedom is a liability. Until journalism is recognized as a profession for trained men who have certain defined qualifications, the newspaper business will vacillate. Sometimes it will be an organ of predatory capitalism, sometimes the expression of class demagogy—in both events a menace to stable government and growing institutions."

The Director of the School of Journalism of Columbia University was invited by the editor of the Monitor to comment upon Mr. William Allen White's editorial and did so in an article published on June 9th, from which the following paragraphs may here be quoted: "I agree with Mr. White that the best way of guarding against inaccuracy (and worse) in the newspapers is in the competent training of the men who are to conduct them and the cultivation of the professional spirit. That is precisely what the schools of journalism are trying to do. They should be strengthened and encouraged to exercise discrimination in the selection of the men they accredit. Newspaper work as now conducted requires both intelligence and training, and there are plenty of suitable young people, with good abilities and high ideals, presenting themselves for the task. The time is past for any bright boy with a high school education to be allowed to assume the responsibility of informing and instructing the public. The time may come when, as Mr. White suggests, the public will

demand some guarantee of competence and responsibility from those who are collecting and disseminating the information on which public opinion is formed, as such a guarantee is now demanded from practitioners in law and medicine. Meanwhile, the obvious course to pursue is to develop the existing educational agencies and to support those newspapers which are conducted, as many still are, not merely as a means of profit to their owners and of amusement to their readers, but with a high sense of public duty and responsibility.

"The pride of the journalist in his profession is not yet dead very far from it—and this is a most valuable resource which ought to be encouraged and developed for the public advantage. Fewer newspapers we are almost certain to have, and, with a larger income at their disposal, the survivors ought to be better newspapers. But they will only be better if the men conducting them have intelligence, education, professional capacity, and a keen sense of public responsibility. If the conception of the newspaper as a private business enterprise should become universal, and it should no longer be regarded as a public trust, I do not see how democratic government is to be carried on.”

BARNARD COLLEGE

REPORT OF THE DEAN

FOR THE ACADEMIC YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1924

To the President of the University

SIR:

I have the honor to submit the following report on the condition and progress of Barnard College during the academic year 1923–24.

The enrollment in our four regular classes has been as follows:

In addition to these regular students we have also had 59 unclassified students and 39 non-matriculated special students, making a total of 946 primarily registered in Barnard College, an increase of 124 as compared with last year. This increase was due to the fact that a much larger number of former students than usual returned. Believing that we were already crowded, we had not intended to have a student body much larger than that of last year, and the Committee on Admissions admitted six fewer students than in 1922-23.

Besides the students primarily registered in Barnard, we have had 54 students from Teachers College and 113 from other parts of the University taking some courses at Barnard. The total registration has been 1,113, an increase of 188 over last year.

On Commencement Day 177 candidates were recommended by Barnard College for the degree of Bachelor of Arts. This is the largest number ever presented by Barnard.