The morning journal-courier., 1908-10-05

expression of thoughts or words in his strange devices It is a field lImitless in It's opportunities for resourcefumesa and ingenuity, II is mind cure for ner- yous ailments-a game of soitair,, with utility combined,
 one need not use pencil or pen to take down words In shorthand The finger need not even scratch the coat In Imitation of actual note taking There is a mental shorthand writing of the most fascinating sort, particu- larly if the writer Is only halt interest ed in what the speaker is saying, IT that is the case take him in shorthand, Think Its forms with lightning rapidity as he goes along; see how that thread of expression can bo thought out closely behind his thread of ut. terance think of the grouping Of words, Into a single unreiovod series of strokes, known as 'phrasnE,' that may be executed The best phraslng is always done In mental note-taklng. The best plans for doing 1t with a pencil rrttft7 tfirtrHE4+r would be the condition of the man who could not listen to an address, or a conversation, without mentally con verting it into stenographic forms; and on the other hand, to the one who can i lay down this mental pencil at com mand, the privilege of taking 1t up oc- casionally Is not without Its solaces, What do you do when Enoch Bore, some gets hold of you with one of his harrangues?n one friend asked another T never mind very much, unless I am In hurry to get somewhere was the reply. T go to taking what he says down in shorthand, and as such his flow of words interests me-
 For Newspaper Men.
 Relatively few newspaper men of the present generation understand shorthand Senator Hoar onco asked young college graduate who had de- cided to enter newspaper work If he had mastered shorthand, and on re- ceipt of negative reply the senator remarked that when he was starting out in life young men regularly eX- pected to learn the things which would be of help in their chosen lines, | but that the youth of the present day | seemed to regard anything of that | kind as wholly unnecessary. His point was well taken. Public men suffer very seriously from the interviewer { who delays them by having to take | everything down in longhand and suffer still worse from the inaccura- l cles which haste In lonEhand produc- | ton enforces Many a public man makes distinct difference in hs treatment of the newspaper men who accost hlm on the basis of this quall- \ fceyion, Al tho same time shorthand ! has ruined scores of otherwise effect i've newspaper men. Life preservsrs | ana rubber wings may have spole l good swimmers. The reporter who Gepenea upon shorthand takes down | tQj much and writes out too muen
 The full text of anything Is raroiy worth while The important points which percolato through the mind of | the bearer are really about all that iG i of value One can imagine what | rauls address on Mars Hill as stenoS- raphlcally reported might have been 1 hy contrast with the compact, con- 1 densed sentences upon which by their | winnawlng and slftlng the ages have 1 laid their censecrating hand The great orations of tho world have elth- l CT been veS carefully worked out | by their authors. or several times sfted by theii transcribers
 No off-hand, eXtemporaneous re- marks stenographically reported will ever get into tho list of great literary masterpieces Similarly no great piece of writing, if descriptive of conversa- 1 tlons or scenes will ever be made up of pure stenographic report This Is l the limitation of shorthand to the newspaper man Unless the young iour- 1 nalist learns this art, with a full real ization that he must make little use of l it, and then only on special occasions, just like aashlisht photograph he will be better off not to learn it at all.
 The same principle applies in all note taking Tho lawyer who wants to catch  what his adversary says with absolute exactness and with the minimum ex- pondituro of effort should use short- hand If he wants to make running account of something which hapr
 getting merely the sense and tho gJ. stance of it shorthand will be of little advantage, except 10 make the tram scribing task easier So lt Is with the architect and engineer and the busl- ness man, and the college student Shorthand is a form of conversation | photography But on how few occa- sions one wants A photograph, or at least more of one than can be carried in tie memory The newspaper man ought to know It's limitations. The same Is true of all those who have the slightest thought of learning 1t, aside from the professional stenographer; the nrt is a great convenience, but one can- not lean upon it or expect lt to be a real burden bearer