Practical English Composition: Book II | Page 8

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 r?le 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.

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 1,000?acres of his southeast Missouri land in sunflowers this year as a further demonstration that this plant can be cultivated with profit on land where other crops may not thrive so well. Phillips has been experimenting for several years in the culture of sunflowers, whose seed, when mixed with other seed, makes excellent chicken and hog feed. Last year he planted nearly 100?acres in sunflowers. The cost of planting and harvesting is about $6 an acre, he says, and the returns from $35 to $48.
II
HALIFAX, N.S., Dec.?25.--One of the most extraordinary endowments bestowed by nature on any land is enjoyed by the fortunate group of counties round the head of the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia.
Along the shores of this bay there are great stretches of meadow land covered with rich grass and dotted with barns. These meadows have been brought into existence by the power of the tides in the Bay of Fundy, which have no parallel elsewhere on the globe. There is sometimes a difference of sixty feet between the levels of the water at low and at high tide. The tide sweeps in with a rush, carrying with it a vast amount of solid material scoured out of its channel.
The accumulated deposits of the ages have produced a soil seventy or eighty feet deep. Owing to its peculiarities, this meadow land retains its fertility in a marvelous way, producing heavy crops of hay annually without diminution and without renewal for an indefinite number of years.
When renewal is desired it is only necessary to open a dike, which allows the tide to flood the land again and leave a fresh deposit of soil.
III
WASHINGTON, Dec.?25.--Michigan holds sixth place among the States in the value of its mineral production, with an output in 1912 valued at