The Columbus journal., 1884-12-17
Short Hand Writing.


is known for certain as to the early his
tory of stenography. 1t is probable
that from the earliest times when men
wrote they indulged in authorizations to
Q more or less extent in order TO waste
as little time as possible in copying,
and it is very probable also that ingen-
ious scholars of different nations may
often have devised terse and concise
systems of caligraphy for their own
private use. But this does not estab-
Iish the existence of any widespread
and generally recognized method of
shorthand writing. and we find nothing
of the kind until the discovery of seme-
iography-that is, the art of writing in
.;gns-at Athens. 1t is not very clear
who was the inventor of this art. DiO
genes Laertius seems to attribute the
merit of it to XenophOn, for he affirms
that the famous historian was the first
Athenian to practice it. But however
that may be, we can be certain of this.
that Xenophon was very adroit seme-
i0graphtr, and that it is to him we owe
such few of the speeches of Socrates Is
have been handed down to our times.
Semeiograpky must have been a rather
complicated art, for we are repeatedly
told by Greek and Latin authors that it
was very hard TO acquire it. But this
fact only adds to the credit of those
who were patient and studiOus en- ough
to surmount the difficulties of the
arduous task, and it may be judged
how great is the debt that we owe to
those courageous tOilerS when one re-
members hat had it not been for them
well nigh all the models of Grecian
elOquence that has survived to this day,
and among them the matchless Orations
of Demosthenes, would have been lost to
us. There are at present but two speci-
mems extant of Greek semciOSraphy.
one in the library of the Vatican and
the other in the Bibliotheque Imperiale
at Paris. The first contains the works
of Dennis the AreOpagite. and tho
second the speeches of HerlnOgenes, to-
gether with a few extracts of an un-
known work.
From Athens shorthand writing was
imported into Rome, where, thanks to
the influence of Cicero, it became not
only fashionable art, but also most
lucrative and honorable profession.
Trio, the freedman of Cicero and after
ward his confidant and intimate friend,
was the most renowned of Latin nOtdrii.
1t would seem, however, that stenOg-
raphy was very far from having at
tanned then the degree of perfec-
ton which it has reached during the
last sixty years. What corroborates
this opinion is that on the day when
Cato was to speak against the measures
proposed by Cesar to thwart the Cata-
line conspiracy, Cicero was afraid to
rely upon only one or two shorthand
writers for q report of the intended
speech; he caused as many as twelve to
be placed in differant parts of the Sen
ate hall, and it is thus that we have be-
come possessed of this celebrated har-
rangue of Cato, the only one that
remains of him. So great was the i'm
portance which Cicero attached to
stenography that, although a short
hand writer himself, he found it utterly
impossible to get on for single day
without Trio, who was constantly ut
his elbow ready to take down his i'm
provisations, or to copy out his letters.
In one of his epistles he says to this
valued amanuensis: 81 should not
have thought, my dear Trio, that it
would have been so hard to have dis
pensed with your help. Take care of
your health and be persuaded of this,
that the best service you can render me
is to keep from being ILL.," If we had
need of other testimony to prove the
esteem in which stenography was held
at Rome, we might cite Ovid and Pru
dentius, the first of whom tells us that
Julius Caesar habitually wrote in short
hand. and gave his manuscripts over to
copyistS to transcribe. and the second,
that ST.. Cassian, who lived under the
reigns of Decius and Valerius, was one
of the most celebrated professors of
stenography. Having been condemned
to death for refusing to sacrifice to
idols, he was delivered over to the ten
der mercies of his pupils. who killed
him with their stylets. The historian
Vano was another practiced notarius-
the 400 volumes he loft were all written
in shorthand.
However, the 'Tironian notes." as
they were called Cfrom the fact of Trio
having first adopted them from the
Greek), were originally of a very i'm
perfect character. Two principal
causes conduced to this imperfection:
Firstly, the letters of TirO's shorthand
alphabet had too much analogy with
the letters of tho ordinary alphabet,
which, consisting as it did then, entire
ly of the letters we now call capitals,
did not admit of rapid tracing; and
secondly, the stenographic vocabulary
of Trio comprised only 1.1OO words,
which rendered it quite impossible for
but q rough outline to be
taken of most public speeches. New
ertheleSs, the system, such as it was,
worked very well, and being improved
shortly after its introduction into Italy, |
by ParSianus and Aquila, who simpli- |
fled the signs and enlarged the vocabu-
larry, it soon spread among scholars
and became very popular. Augustus
resolved to learn the art, and after
few months of study acquired great
proficiency in it. Hcreupon Macanas,
who had been little skeptical ut first,
his powerful patronage to
shorthand writer's, and the consequence
was that within few years there were
no less than seyenty-tive schools at
Rome and 800 in the provinces where
the Tironian notes were taught. From
that time every Italian of education
was as much bound to know stenogra-
ply as modern gentleman is to know
how to spell. Young Romans and old
with each other by means
of shorthand, and the Acta Diurna,
those budgets of news that were dis
patched every day or week from the
Forum of Rome to the more important
cities of the empire, were all drawn uY
in the abbreviated form, and only trans
cribed upon reaching thoir destination.
Among the nOtdrii who modified the
notes, two, deserve special
mention, viz: Seneca. the Rhetorician,
and Saint Cyprian. The former added
.wo thousand and the latter eight thou
sand to the number of signs in the vO-
;abulary. Subsequently the number of
,hese signs attained a total of thirteen
thousand. and the art of stenOgraphy
hen reached the acme of its perfection.
Instead of drawing up mere summaries
IF tho Spaachns fhoy, hoard apH 61liun