The others were men of all work, writing and fighting their way to the front, but possessing the "nose for news," using the Bennett formula and rescript as the basis of their serious efforts, and never losing sight of it.

Forney had been a printer.

Medill and Storey were caught young by the lure of printer's ink.

Bowles was born and reared in the office of the Springfield Republican, founded by his father, and Halstead, a cross betwixt a pack horse and a race horse, was broken to harness before he was out of his teens.
Assuming journalism, equally with medicine and law, to be a profession, it is the only profession in which versatility is not a disadvantage.
Specialism at the bar, or by the bedside, leads to perfection and attains results.

The great doctor is the great surgeon or the great prescriptionist--he cannot be great in both--and the great lawyer is rarely great, if ever, as counselor and orator.
[Illustration: Henry Watterson--From a painting by Louis Mark in the Manhattan Club, New York] The great editor is by no means the great writer.