The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-08-30
THOUGHT AND FRS TRANSMISSION.

political life.
THOUGHT AND IT'S TRANSMISSION.
There are few directions in which men
are so far behind the progress Of the age
as in the means now in use for the con-
veyance of thought to paper Time has
come to be the greatest factor in the
transactions Of the world of commerce
Time has been the merest bagateIIe with
those who paraphrasing a thought of the
immortal Sancho Panza-'invented"
writing. -
Every expedient that could suggest
itself has been brought in play, especially
within the past decade to get over the
semi-harbarous method of expressing
thought through writing. Shorthand has
in that time come into general use Up
to ten OF fifteen years ago they were
comparatively few who resorted to short
hand, save in the making of a record for
some given purpose Today the man of
business finds it a physical impossibility
to sit down and write his thoughts out on
paper. He is compelled to have recourse
to the shorthand writer, the type writer,
or both. He must commit his thoughts
at least as rapidly rs he can speak with
elaboration Yet to do even this he is
compelled to proceed by a decidedly
roundabout method. His stenographer
must transeribe his or her notes before
the matter is available for practical pur-
pose. And, taking the time consumed in
the treble process of debating, TRANSCRIPT
ing and re-reading the advance is not as
great on the old plan as it appears at
first thought.
Until the schools have engaged them
selves in communicating to the rising
generation some system Of phonetic writ
ing, it is probable that we must so on
for some generations perhaps before we
find a remedy.
Science is busy in the many incidental
problems which present themselves in
this connection. For instance, the exreri-
ment is we'll under way, and the pros
poets of lasting success are good, of type
writing by electricity, and of directly
utilizing the type-writing invention in
connection with telegraphy The inven-
ton has been patented, and is in the ccn-
troll of the Postal Telegraph company. 1t
is regarded as having solved the problem
of time in transmission which, by reason
of the crudity of the Morse alphabet, ana
of our system of spelling, has been the
great problem with electrical inventors.
1t would be difficult to give wholly in
telligible explanation of the invention te
the general reader. The results claimed
to. be possible of accomplishment by 1t
may be summed UP in comparison:
While a message of say 900 words oceu-
pies something like thirty minutes ope
rated through the Morse key, the same
message only takes about eight minutes
sion through this method has been ac-
complshed, two sending machines trans
mitting their messages over one wire
simultaneously at the rate Of over 100
words a minute. The expectation of the
inventor is moreover to ultimately obtain
quadruplex TRANSMISSION, which will Sc
cure the sending, receiving and printing
in type of Geographic matter at the rate
of SEQ words a minute.
The need Of more rapid means Of trans
mission of thought in every direction in
which writing of any kind is used is as
sorting itself mere pronouncedly day
after day. 1t is believed that the prog
ress made in electrical invention men
toned can be made available, before long,
so that. the linotype printing machine
will be made ten times more effective in
point of time than it is at present.
Whether this expectation has any SUBJ
stantial foundation the effort will con-
tinue to go on to overcome the limitations
of our present system of sign writing
until we have evolved from our present
crude methods into something which will
represent rational relation between the
| operation Of the human mind in conceiv-
ing ideas and of the hand in giving ex-
preston to those ideas in the form Of
manual signs.