Lectures in the Forum IN Industrial Journalism At the New York University Under the Auspices of THE NEW YORK TRADE PRESS With an Introduction by ALBERT FREDERICK WILSON CALIFORNIA NEW YORK ADVERTISING & SELLING MAGAZINE, INC. It is a significant thing that marked industrial energy in a nation is always a by-product—the result of coöperative thinking. An insular state of mind grows a row of potatoes on a side hill where its grandfather planted a hundred years before. The progressive sum leads out to exhaustion. A man thinking alone lets his ideas eat in on the species. Men thinking together fertilize energy through the process of attrition. Dynamics knows. of no force that can compare with that created when strong men's ideas rub elbows. It is not sloth that endangers a nation's progress-that can easily be cauterized. The insidious peril is insular energy working out to self-exhaustion. Chronic insularity, with its attending evils, was torn to shreds by the teeth of the printing press. Men no longer plant potatoes year after year on the side hill. Somewhere, a printing press jammed its indignant jaws together and stopped the folly. By that act the press, the potato patch, and the enlightened energy became social factors. There is nothing more vital to society than the printing press that tells men how to work. In this small volume of lectures we have gathered together the addresses which were delivered before the Forum in Industrial Journalism at New York University during the session of 1914-1915. The purpose of the Forum was to acquaint young men and women of the university world with the opportunities the business press offered for life work. The Department of Journalism of New York University, in coöperation with the New York Trade Press Association, presents this book as the first contribution toward a record of the beginnings and development of industrial journalism in America. University training for business journalists was first suggested by Mr. Horace M. Swetland. Several years ago he wrote Dean Joseph French Johnson, of the School of Commerce, Accounts and Finance, proposing that the Department of Journalism at New York University institute a lecture course in trade and class journalism. Dean Johnson immediately recognized the service that such a course might accomplish. He turned the matter over to a committee to consult with the New York Trade Press Association, his one stipulation being that if the |