General Historical Information Prior to 1900

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 departmental and official publications of the university by the fact that its sphere embraces 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 debating society. Students in the English universities have from time to time attempted to establish publications similar to college papers in the United States, the most notable of which, "The Snob," was edited by Thackeray while at Cambridge in 1829.

 Other sporadic efforts in the 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 official 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 criticisms, and often supplemented the literary societies. With the broadening of the student life there came a change in the character of the periodicals until today the students of nearly every American college support from one to a dozen periodicals. In recent years the institution 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 published 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 existence 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 "Athenaeum, 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 supports 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) historical record; (6) the interests of certain departments 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, bi-weekly, or quarterly. The most popular forms of the college paper today 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 Harvard "Echo," now "Crimson," in 1879, and it was followed immediately 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 (1892); the Daily Californian, organized as a weekly; the Berkleyan, in 1874 and as a daily in 1897; the University of Michigan Daily (1890); the University of Minnesota Daily (1900); the Pennsylvanian (1883); the Daily Princetonian; the Daily Palo Alto, at Stanford University; the Wisconsin Cardinal; the Daily Maroon, at the University of Chicago (1902); and the Columbia Spectator, the successor of the Acta Columbiana, and for many years a bi-monthly, reorganized as a daily in (1902). The Tulane Spirit is an example of dailies that have had a brief existence, while the Scarlet 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 Californian  is a six-page paper, twice a week. The circulation ranges from 800 to 2500 copies a day, with substantial profits.

The weekly paper is exemplified by the Amherst Student (1867), the Dartmouth, the Hamilton Life, the Kansas University Weekly, the Lafayette (1870), the Rutgers Targum, the Syracuse University Weekly (1900), the Texan, the Olive and Blue (Tulane University, 1897), College Topics (University of Virginia), the Williams Weekly, the University of Chicago Weekly, the Barnard Bulletin, the Notre Dame Scholastic, the Tech (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), the Triangle (New York University), and the Wesleyan Argus. Most of these are devoted entirely to news, but a few include some literary matter, and several, as the California Occident (1881), are entirely literary in Character.

Monthly magazines include the Amherst Literary Monthly (1886), the Brunonian (Brown University, 1829), the California Magazine (1895), the Columbia Literary Monthly, the Cornell Era (1868), which absorbed the Cornell Magazine in 1900, the Dartmouth Magazine (1892), the Hamilton Literary Monthly, the  Harvard Monthly (1885), the University of Kansas Oread (1900), the Lafayette Touchstone (1896), the Michigan Inlander, the Minnesota Magazine, the Red and Blue (University of Pennsylvania, 1886), the Nassau Literary Magazine (1842), the Syracuse Herald (1872), the University of Virginia Magazine (1840), the Williams Literary Monthly (1885), and the Yale Courant. In addition to the Hamilton Life, the official publication of the fraternities, the non-fraternity men at Hamilton publish about six times a year the Review. The Harvard Illustrated Magazine, monthly (1899), is a new departure in college journalism. The Trinity Tablet (1868) is published every three weeks; the Harvard Advocate (1866), the Vermont Cynic, the Chaparral and Sequoia at Leland Stanford University are bi-weeklies, and the Columbia Morningside is a tri-weekly.  Among  the more important papers published at women's colleges are the Mount Holyoke, Wellesley Magazine, Radcliffe Magazine, Wells College Chronicle, Smith College Monthly, and Vassar Miscellany.

The humorous college papers are few in number and generally conducted on the lines of the New York Life rather than of Puck or Judge. In fact, Life may be said to be the outgrowth of the college humorous magazines, since it was  actually established by former editors of the Harvard Lampoon, and its success was due to Lampoon men and former editors of the Columbia Spectator and Acta Columbiana. Besides the Harvard Lampoon, established in 1876, the most important humorous college papers are the Cornell Widow, the University of Michigan Wrinkle, the Yale Record, all bi-weekly; the Princeton Tiger, monthly, and the Columbia Jester, a bi-weekly. In 1900 the Punch Bowl was started at the University of Pennsylvania as a monthly humorous magazine. At the University of California the literary monthly publishes a humorous illustrated supplement called the Axe.

Alumni news is sent out in some form from many colleges, often by the faculty in the form of a weekly, monthly, or quarterly magazine. An alumni newspaper published by a joint board of alumni and undergraduates is a less common form, but in those cases in which it exists the results are highly satisfactory, and present perhaps the most successful examples of college journalism. The Yale Alumni Weekly, the Cornell Alumni News, and the Princeton Alumni Weekly are among the best conducted college papers of any kind. Harvard publishes the Harvard Bulletin, weekly, and the Harvard Graduate Magazine, established as a quarterly in 1893. Some other colleges maintain alumni papers, but those already quoted are representative of the class.

  Many of the professional schools publish magazines of a serious nature, devoted to particular interests. Examples are the Harvard Law Review, weekly; the Pennsylvania Dental Journal, monthly; the American Law Register (University of Pennsylvania), monthly; the Phagocyte (Tulane Medical School), the Yale Medical Journal, the Sibley Journal (Sibley College, Cornell), the Columbia School of Mines Quarterly, and the Columbia Law Review. Some of these professional journals take high rank in the outside world. In some cases, as in the Sibley Journal, they are managed entirely by undergraduates; in others, there are associate or advisory faculty or alumni editors.

The college annual gives a survey of the year's collegiate history. It contains statistics and records of the fraternities, clubs, societies, athletic events, and other matters of interest to students, and includes daring attempts at humor aimed at the students and the faculty. The cost of preparing one of these year books already mounts into the thousands of dollars. They are yearly growing in size, and more and more attention is paid to art work in their preparation. Some of the college annuals are the Amherst Olio, the Brown Lieber, the California  Blue and Gold, the Chicago Cap and Gown, the Columbian, formerly the Columbiad, the Cornelian, the Dartmouth Egis, the Harvard Register, the Hullabaloo of Johns Hopkins, the Lafayette Melange, the Lehigh Epitome, the Michiganensian, the Minnesota Gopher, the Pennsylvania Record, the Princeton Bric-a-Brac, the Stanford Quad, the Syracuse Onondaguan, the Texas Cactus, the Trinity Ivy, the Tulane Jambalayo, the Vermont Ariel, the Virginia Corks and Curls, the Williams Giulielmensian, the Yale Banner and Potpourri.

The peculiar system of management by which the college paper is perpetuated from year to year also involves a periodical fluctuation in the literary value of the contributions. Each year as a portion of the board of editors are graduated or pass to a higher class, an equal number of new classmen are elected to take their places. By this means the publication is kept alive, and its general tone and policy are preserved, while its literary standard is raised or lowered as the new editors are more or less clever than their predecessors. The college paper is generally recognized and encouraged by the faculty of the institution, and in some cases substantial acknowledgment is made for work done by the editors. In the majority of institutions the college papers, in common with other student organizations, are provided with office room, heat, light, and service.

Competition for places on the editorial boards of college papers is often very keen. The method of selecting editors varies considerably, vacancies being filled on the basis of literary competition, class election, editorial or faculty appointment, excellence in class work, fraternity or society representation, and various other ways. When editors are elected by the student body, they are held responsible to it, while they are left free in the internal management of the paper. The Cornell Sun is chartered by the whole student body; other papers are official society organs, close corporations or stock companies. The evil effects of college politics are often apparent in the selection of editors, leading sometimes to the establishment of rival papers, and to an injurious form of competition. Cases of the abuse of editorial positions for personal ends or animosities are noticeably rare, although no checks except student sentiment exist to prevent it.

A diversity of opinion exists as to the influence of the college paper in developing literary talent among the undergraduates. It seems probable that the general training in the various features of journalism now acquired by editors of college papers is at least equivalent to the purely literary training given by the old literary periodicals. It is a fact that numbers of the most successful of our younger writers have served their apprenticeship on the editorial board of college publications, which are increasingly recognized as valuable training-schools for journalistic work. A college editor has much to unlearn when he takes a place on the daily paper, but he has at the same time  acquired much valuable experience in editorial and business management, and in reportorial work. The college paper, as now conducted, affords an agreeable and profitable employment, and gives to friends of an institution an actual insight into the life of the college that cannot be gained form any official catalogue or report. Like general newspapers, the college paper has its exchange list, and its editors and readers are thus kept in touch with the doings and sentiments of all other colleges. To the instructors the college press affords the surest indication of student sentiment, and is helpful in the solution of educational problems affecting the institution. There are now in the United States and Canada, according to the best newspaper directories, about 275 undergraduate publications, not including alumni and professional school magazines, and the official publications of the Greek-letter societies.