The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-11-13
SHORTHAND SYSTEMS.
Tit Expert, After Many Years OF Practice,
Evolves q Method or His Own.

To THE EDITOR OF The SUN-Sr: / have
read with interest the several letters that
have appeared recently In The sun regarding
Perfected Shorthand" Antiquity OF Short
hand" &c. and possibly my experience may
be typical Of that Of many others who are
writing stenograpby in New York to-day.
In the year 1887, at the age OF IS years,
working as an ONCE boy in a typewriting es-
tablishment at the muniicent salary Of 81. SO
a week, / began to learn shorthand in the
evenings from that veteran Brooklyn teacher.
Charles z. Young. to whom many pupils
in Greater New York owe their knowledge
and success. How ] ever managed to pay
him eco for his course. which was strung out
for a year or more In my case at the rate OF
one lesson a week. and in addition support
myself on a weekly wage of $3.50, is still a
mystery TO me.
Every opportunity I could get was used
In practising. ] tried to take the sermons
Of DR.. Lyman Abbott. the speeches Of the
late Henry George. and once ] even essayed
to report the late Phillips Brooks, with his
average Of 213 words a minute, the last
time. I believe. he ever spoke in Plymouth
Church.
MY work, however, developed along the
lines Of private secretaryships and law ONCE
practice, In which ] found accuracy more
desirable than speed. Grad ally / have
accumulated a little shorthand library as the
art has grown upon me, comprising the works
VI nson's -Compltt e PHOTOGRAPHED" and
Grshamis Handbook o. Standard Phoncg-
raphy', tSgether WITH yaTlogs works on
others, seyer al shorthand dictionaries and
books written In shorthand.
for a matter Of twenty years or so he is ait
TO hnd himself writing a system OF his own,
based upon What he has gained from the study
hand will find good points in all the four
great masters, each one containing some
thing the others have not.
Shorthand is something like music and
chess. in that the deeper you go. into IL the
more fascinating N becomes II you have
grammalosues, .Iogograms. &c. Of Benn
graphs found in Isase Pitmsn; aside SoS the
YOU wifi and much that is valuable for ooSrt
reporting In the way Of word signs aud con-
you will come to the diferenrisi calculus OF
shorthand as compared wiki its simple
Il is Graham who taught us to gain speed
by the omission OF words. never writing "of
the" for instance IN court r. porting, but
always sh9winS tneir omission by placing
they would naturally appear: who made a
science of cutting words down TO their short
biity, and using position" to do away with
the insertion OF -vowels. Pro ably more
than Is per cent. OF the court and lie gislatve
that they owe more to Graham than to any
other one man,
TO revert 10 9ur musical comparison. There
are some people in this world who have only
one composer: II they adore the mystical
Beethoven with his frequs ntly intricate hsr-
lfnous strains Of Rossini; IL they like TO work
out the solid c~ontrapuntal puzzles of Bach
they look askance at the, sentimental Chopin:
II they are pronounced Wagnarians they
pretend to abhor the light and tune full ope ras
OF Sullivan. The people who cannot discern
are either narrow Minded or lacking ln must
cal taste, or both. So there are Do ople who
say that there is only one system OF shorthand
One might as we'll say there IL only ono "open.
ing" in chess, which is the best.
FRFDRRIcK WILLIS DAVIS,
NEW YORK. November II.