In England most public schools of any pretensions have their School Magazines; and the institution is becoming common in India, though here they are found more in colleges than in schools.
A school magazine serves several useful purposes; the most important, perhaps, being that, if it is well edited, it fosters esprit de corps, or what may be called school patriotism.
It can be made to help the scholars to realize that they are a united body, however different may be their individual tastes and occupations; and it should teach them to be proud of the school to which they belong, loyal to its best interests and anxious to uphold its best traditions.
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The school magazine, also, may serve as a link between the present scholars and the “old boys”, and help to keep the latter in touch with their old school. As former pupils read the school news month by month, they will feel something of the old pride in the place where they got their education and their interest in it will be maintained.
If their school issues no magazine, these “old boys”, scattered about the country and absorbed in their own occupations, are liable to forget their school, and lose interest in its welfare.
The school magazine encourages the boys to practice writing, by affording opportunities to budding authors to see their compositions in print; especially if the scholars are encouraged in healthy rivalry by the offer of prizes for the best articles that appear in the year.
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A boy that will take little interest in doing a set exercise in class, will put forth his best efforts when he knows that his composition will appear in print and may win the prize.
The school magazine, also, affords a good platform from which the Head Master may from time to time speak to the whole school on matters of school life and discipline, and the more serious matters of character and conduct.
But if it is to serve all those useful purposes well, a school magazine must be carefully edited. The editor should be one of the school staff, though be may be helped by sub-editors chosen from among the scholars.
He should raise the standard of the magazine by refusing all badly written contributions, and any that are silly, in bad taste, or objectionable on other grounds.
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Too often such magazines do more harm than good, or at best are very poor productions, simply because the editor does not take his work seriously, and is satisfied with filling the pages somehow with anything he can get hold of. Better no magazine at all than a worthless and silly production.