Bacon has said, “Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.” Many prominent men of the present age assert on authority that shorthand makes a valuable man.
The world’s advancement has never been so marked and rapid as within the past century; inventors have, it would seem, almost exhausted themselves in producing means for improvement; where think you, would the busy man find himself were it not for the opportunities open at every hand enabling him to keep in the whirl?
Inventors, and the value of their respective inventions, are fully appreciated by those who make use of them, but there has been no greater gift presented than the one by Mr. Isaac Pitman in 1837, in the shape of Phonography; he, after a few months of hard labor, reduced the phonetic characters to a simple form such as any intelligent and ordinarily educated person might, after a proper amount of application, use to great advantage. The public were not long in realizing the benefits to be derived, and each year has seen a steady growth in the number of shorthand readers and writers, and to-day finds thousands who are successfully using the little strokes, some following the original system, and others using the modifications; all, however, agreeing as to the true worth of shorthand as a time saver.
We who started last Autumn, with the determination to master Phonography and typewriting, knew in part the advantages to be gained after the top was reached, but we did not know by actual experience what breakers were ahead in the accomplishment of the work before us; for the timid ones this very ignorance proved a great blessing,—conquering one difficulty at a time, with the greater ones in the shadow, was not as disheartening as having the future in plain sight.
The multitude of crooks, circles and dry rules were taken in turn and left behind, and after reaching half way the journey, and pausing for a rest and renewal of courage, we began the pleasanter work of writing and reading connectedly. At the start were simple stories which seemed at the time almost silly, then came letters and law matter, and, as the words in the first lessons kept recurring, we began to appreciate “The Wolf and the Lamb” and various companions of a similar nature. Slowly but surely the work has been progressing. Time has fairly flown away and has brought us together to-night for the parting as a class.
There has been much bitter with the sweet and many clouds with the sunshine; social pleasures were necessarily given up and numerous sacrifices made, to say nothing of the keen disappointment brought home to each as she recognized, despite her greatest efforts, that the actual work was far behind what her aspirations had been at the outset. But through all we have been cheered and encouraged by our teachers, nor must I omit the occasional well timed lectures, depressing at the time of delivery, but sending each home with a fixed idea of doing better, and continuing to the end; added to these has been the entire novelty of the whole course, always something new. Like all proverbial Americans, born, it is said, with the interrogation point at tongue’s end, the constant variety made the journey one immense Why?
We are joyous over the prospect of a cessation of hard study, but regret that the end of our intercourse has come, necessitating the severing of ties as teachers and those taught, and the farewell as class friends; but each will carry with her a remembrance of the Winter spent together with much profit and pleasure to all.
To our kind Instructor through all the intricacies of Phonography, we are deeply indebted. Within ourselves is the consciousness that had it not been for his patience and untiring efforts we would have given up in despair long ago; as also to our Instructress and friend who has helped us over the road to the success of typewriting are we equally indebted; to the never flagging energy of both we owe as much as to the individual effort.