Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-05-26

| NSsSSNl-kMAA
| T,/SA34fiE fession who has made
| AANtA yNkR hobby Of collecting
statistics, and for
| IA this reason cannot
| N ~ very we'll be contra
NcN< dicted. 1t was while
discussing the avoca-
| lions Of certain people, as they PASSED
along street, that the remark was made
to a reporter Of The Evening Star. 1t ap-
peared as IL nine out of every ten people
Of this city were employed in following the
| ideas of Pitman. or Graham. or "a dozen
others, for a livelihood.
"You can hardly conceive" continued the
stenographic statistician, how many people
| in this city possess the knowledge of short
hand. I have calculated that there are in
the neighborhood of 1000 people in WASH
| ington who are paid salaries to follow die
| tation with the mystic characters, and al
] most again that number who have q knowl-
| edge of shorthand, but do not follow 1t
| regularly. This state of things is, of course,
| brought about through the passage Of the
| civil service law. Any one passing an ex-
amina ton of clerk or copyist with stenog-
raphy as an auxiliary will stand a much
better chance of receiving an appointment
than without this extra knowledge.
| Strange as 1t may appear, the govern
| ment 10 almost continually in need of Ste
nographers, and very frequently has to ad-
| vertise for them. There Is so much work
Of a nature that requires dictation in the
| departments that 1t would be almost an
impossbility to get along without 1t, This
is one reason for the demand. Another is
| the promotion of worthy people to higher
positions, thereby taking them out OF the
ranks of stenographers."
The Ratio of Ability.
! "It has been frequently asserted by out
of-town stenographers that the government
does not pay salaries large enough 60 secure
the pick of the profession, and that with
the exception of the stenographic force up
at the Capitol the ratio as to ability Is
| very low In Washington. Is that true
assertion?" asked the reporter.
ITO that question I would give an en-
phatic NOT! replied the stenographer, al
| though there is some slight foundation upon
| which to base the charge. Leaving the
| Capitol force out of the discussion-as there
is no question that the stenographers up
! there are the best In the world-the only
cause for complaint with the force In the
| departments Is that in a great many cases
| their work is so light that they almost I'M
consciously slip backward. Then comes a
| time when their ability is tested. and their
weakness brought out. There are hundreds
! in this class, and the danger Of slack work
| has become a menace to the profession.
II know a young man UP in the Treasury
Department that held an 81, 500 position up
| until few months since that will aptly IL
| lustrate my point. When he first entered
| the department 1t was at big salary, as he
was one of the best stenographers In the
country. AS ill-luck would have II, he was
assigned to the private secretaryship of one
Of ha chi Of rtn To-
man was a slow thinker and talker. For
several years those two worked in harmony
| and thoroughly understood each other; but.
unconsciously. the stenographer drifted
| backward. Not long ago the chief was
| fired on short notice. The man that took
] his place came out of the west, and was
full Of nervous energy. He started in with
| rush on his dictation. and, in the Ian
guage of the profession. put 1t up the back
| of his stenographer. 1t was at a speed the
young man would have smiled at when he
entered the department. The chief fumed
and fretted at the stenographer's breaks
and mistakes. and In one weeks time the
| latter was relesated to a 81. 900 position.
Practice the Secret of Success.
Almost everybody knows that practice is
the secret of success in shorthand, and
there Is no such a thing as too much Of it.
I can imagine the smiles of sarcasm that
would ilumine the faces of the force up at
| the Capitol II they heard that expression
but it is a fact. Notwithstanding. The art
Of shorthand writing is not learned without
continued study and patience, and ready
| longhand writers are more apt to acquire
| It in the shortest time The number of those
who are able to fit themselves as Office
shorthand clerks is, however, solely de-
pendent upon qualifications entirely apart
from knowledge of swift writing. In other
words, an intelligent person with good
general education is capable of learning
enough of the art to make a successful
business amanuensis. 1t takes years of
constant practice to become thoroughly pro-
ficient and probably not more than one per-
| son out OF hundred who study shorthand
is physically and mentally qualified to make
a verbatim reporter
although shorthand colleges endeavor to
teach the practice as well as theory, II is
not until pupil obtains situation that his
or her training begins and they really com
mence 20 learn how little they know. The
civil service examiners, as rule. keep this
class of stenographers out of the govern
ment service, as the person that does the
! examining is generally an expert and can
tell a .greener' at distance of fifty feet.
Business men who employ this class have
to exercise considerable patience before
these inexperienced people meet their re-
quirements. AS / have before remarked,
competent stenographers are scarce; they
are seldom out of employment and COM
niand from 5000 up to $500. This, OF
course does not take in the Capitol force
The work down there is done by contract,
and the salaries range as high as $1,000
year.
"a great and growing evil to be found in
each and every city in the country is the
professor that guarantees to learn the
student a certain kind of shorthand in
three months, and at the end of that time
to furnish q position for his innocent pa
tron The people that patronage these pro
fessors' are generally from the country, and
have but slight ideas as to the length and
breadth of Pitman or Grahams Ideas.
Sometimes, / will admit, they do secure po-
sitions, but the retention of the same is
hardly long enough to warrant the expen-
diture of car fare to the expected Ell
Dorado These three months graduates,
when they do secure employment, receive
salaries but little higher than those paid
office and errand boys; but business men
soon become weary Of revising their work
and correcting their errors and they are
set adrift to seek new victims of their in
competency or to buckle down to work and
finally win out IN their battle against false
representation.
Must Learn the Rudiments.
Until the theory OF shorthand is thor
oughly mastered success writer and ac-
curate transcriber is impossible, and this
accounts for the scarcity of competent
stenographers If students would bear In
| mind that 1t is absolutely necessary to un-
| derstand the theory before they commence