UNIVERSITY OF LONDON JOURNALISM DIPLOMA [Do the Editor of the
SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I was much interested in the account recently given in your correspondence columns of the London University Courses in Journalism. I think, however, that the usefulness of the account would have been greatly increased if actual figures, so far as they are available, had been given as to the number and proportion of the students who, having obtained the diploma, have subsequently obtained journalistic employ- ment.
My reason for asking for such figures is that I am myself one of these students who have taken the courses and hold the diploma, and that my subsequent experience has not been of such a kind as to endorse the value put upon the training by your correspondent. In short, I found myself abandoned in a hopelessly overcrowded labour market ; the gentlemen from whom one might reasonably have expected encourage- ment and opportunity (i.e., those scholars and journalists who acted as patrons to the Course and gave pleasant addresses to the students) took up an attitude of embarrassed reluctance as soon as it came to a question of any practical help.
I do not wish to enlarge upon my own disappointment, but I can only feel that it would be a public misfortune if many young men and women were encouraged by the eulogy in your columns to enter a profession where the prospects are actually so depressing.—I am, Sir, &c., M. A.
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