title="Thirtieth Street">30th St. Both Mrs. Sheldon and John Goldrick, 656 East 105th St., driver of the milk wagon, escaped injury, except for a few minor cuts and bruises.

Mrs. Sheldon was driving east on Payne Avenue on the way to the Pennsylvania Station at Euclid Avenue to meet her  husband, who was coming from New York. The street at Payne Avenue and East 30th St. had just been flushed; and, when Mrs. Sheldon endeavored to turn out toward the car tracks to avoid hitting Goldrick’s wagon, which was just turning into Payne Avenue, the car skidded and side-swiped the wagon.

One wheel of the machine and the mud guard were torn loose, while glass from the shattered wind-shield rained over Mrs. Sheldon as she strove desperately to twist the wheel. Goldrick was hurled from his seat, landing in the back of the wagon, which was piled high with cases of milk bottles. The horses were thrown from their feet by the shock.

Mrs. Sheldon and Goldrick were extricated from the wreckage and conveyed to the office of Dr. W. A. Masters, Payne Avenue and East 32d St., where their injuries were dressed. Later they were taken to their homes.

III. Suggested Time Schedule

IV. Notes, Queries, and Exercises

1. How many paragraphs are there in the report in Section II?
2. What is the subject of each?
3. The object?
4. Point out the “Four W’s.”
5. State why each capital and each mark of punctuation in the model is used.
6. Tell whether each sentence is simple, complex, or compound.
7. Find in the model an adverbial phrase, an adverb, a noun used adverbially, a noun in apposition, a clause modifying a verb, a participle modifying the subject of a verb, a non-restrictive clause, and a clause used as an adjective.
8.  Point out four words or phrases that give color to the story.
9. Write an appropriate heading for the model.

V. Oral Composition

Prepare a report of some accident which you have yourself seen or which has been described to you by an eye-witness. Be sure to get into the report in the proper order the “Four W’s,” the cause, and the result. Note that a good story usually consists of three parts:

1. The Previous Situation.
2. What Happened = The Climax.
3. The Result = The Dénouement.

These are all in the model, but 2 is put first because it is most important. Observe the order of the model. Each member of the class will have a chance to make his report orally, and it will be subjected to the analysis of the class and teacher, who will blame or praise it according to its deserts. The reporter must defend himself, if attacked. Each pupil will therefore in turn play the rôle of a reporter, telephoning a story to headquarters while the class and teacher enact the part of the city editor.

VI. Written Composition

After the process outlined in Section IV of this chapter has shown the reporter how to go about the job, the report is to be written, proof-read by the teacher, corrected by the reporter, and rewritten until it is letter-perfect.

VII. Suggested Reading

Kipling’s 007 in The Day’s Work.

 VIII. Memorize

SUNSHINE

Think every morning when the sun peeps through
The dim leaf-latticed windows of the grove
How jubilant the happy birds renew
Their long melodious madrigals of love;
And, when you think of this, remember too
’Tis always morning somewhere, and above
The awakening continents from shore to shore
Somewhere the birds are singing evermore.

Longfellow, The Birds of Killingworth.
←Contents

 CHAPTER V
CONSTRUCTIVE NEWSPAPER WRITING

“The drying up a single tear has more
Of honest fame than shedding seas of gore.”

Lord Byron.

I. Introduction

The worst thing about most news articles is that they tell of destruction, failure, and tragedy instead of construction, success, and happiness. If one were to judge from the papers, one would be forced to conclude that the world is rapidly advancing from civilization to barbarism. To test the truth of this assertion, you have only to examine almost any current newspaper. A man may labor honorably and usefully for a generation without being mentioned; but if he does or says a foolish thing, the reporters flock to him as do cats to a plate of cream. The reason is obvious. Tragedy is more exciting than any other form of literature; it contains thrills; it sells papers. However, aside from the fact that the publication of details concerning human folly and misfortune is often cruel and unjust to the sufferers, its influence upon the public is debasing in the same way, if not in the same degree, as public executions were debasing.

Newspaper writing should, therefore, deal with progress rather than with retrogression. Most newspaper men admit that this is true, but declare that the public will not buy the kind of papers which all sensible people approve. Just as soon as such papers can be made to pay, they say, we shall have them. One  of the objects of this course is to create a taste for constructive rather than destructive newspapers.

As an exercise tending to produce this result, the student should each day examine the local paper for the purpose of ascertaining how many columns of destruction and how many of construction it contains. The result should be reported to the class and thence to the papers as news.

There are three kinds of items which boys and girls can write and which are constructive. These are:

1. Items dealing with progress.
2. Humorous stories.
3. Items based on contrast.

The work this week will be on the first of these.

II. Models

I

St. Louis, Feb. 22.—L. C. Phillips will plant