The morning journal-courier., 1908-10-05
SHORTHAND USES
It Has It's Many Abuses, Too An Accomplishment Only
 When Well Mastered.
AND MUST BE KEPT UP
Shorthand for the Stenographer, Re porter, Lawyer and Others
 Its Limitations.

~~----------a--a@-----a
 The Boston Transcript recently had the following highly instructive arti- gle on the uses and abuses of short hand,
 E TJ1pffifc and private schools as the academic year opens are undecided as to wheth- CT they should study shorthand. lnstl- tutlons Of various grades are equally uncertain about including fl in their curriculum For the persons who ln tend to become stenographers, either Tn business offices in connection with typewriter operation, or in tho re- porting Of courts or legislative bodies, the question admits of but one answer It IS not with this use of shorthand that the general public is primarily concerned. The wider interest rather Hes In the value of shorthand to the average man in business or profess stonal life, and in its general useful ness as an accomplishment aside from US bread and butter making aspects me Knack, or the art, has now pro ceeded sufficiently far. with Benn Pit man addressing a shorthand congress at the age of S6, to make possible some approximately accurate answer to these questions
 Is shorthand worth learning as an accomplishment? That depends In some branches of knowledge smat- tering Is better than nothing and llt- tie practice in a knack once acquired suttices to keep alive a passable famill- arity with 1t. This is not true with shorthand, Long hours of hard work are necessary with the average man before he can write in it's strokes and curves as fast as he can express him self in the ordinary long hand which he has known from his youth up. A still longer study Is required before he can write as fast in this way as if trained to the typeWritng machine. The per- son whose shorthand has advanced to the stage of equalling in speed either ot these simpler methods has gone over the heavier part of the grade; the rest comes from practice A little knowl- edge of shorthand and a little mental | investment in 1t are therefore useless. because they add nothing to rapidity of expressing thoughts. Much the same is true of keeping 1t up. Unless short hand Is very thoroughly grounded in the mind and memory of the individual particularly in youth, 1t takes consid- erable daily use of t 10 maintain ex- | pertness. IL is a jealous mistress. | Much of its exactions, however, depend on the individual Tho person who be- comes thoroughly grounded in short hand and experienced in it's use before he Is twenty years old, probably never needs to worry about forgetting 1t. He may make an exceedingly slight and infrequent use of it without any moro danger of losing 1t than he Is in of for getting the order of the letters of the alphabet, or the great truths of the multiplication table.
 Few people who have mastered shorthand regret the work they have put on 1t. Those who have not stud od 1t are equally sure, for the most part, that they get along just as well NIllluiL It, bllIuuE Fl PdCn UllSuluNI- stands essentially the others point ot view. Shorthand Is primarily useful for the photography Of the words which one hears, 1t is not a good me- dium in which to compose; it is not a good medium from which to read ones notes, Any public speaker, no matter how thoroughly versed in stenography, would ordinarily prefer typewrtten copy for purpose of ref erence because stenography brief enough to be rapidly written is nec- essarily somewhat of q puzzle to read. | What . stroke or dot or a dash means is determined by the 'context, On the typewrltten page t-h-e always means the and means this without reference to what precedes it or what follows, or whether the mark appears light or dark in impression on the page, or above the line. ar below 1t, or through t "Tbe, is an uncondi- tionni the Not so in shorthand 1 sign.
 Tho Stenographer,
 | .G., ls,t .l. 14