The Ready Writer, Or, Ne Plus Ultra of Short Hand

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1854. Excerpt: ... METHOD OF WRITING SHORT HAND. Having shown the student the course we would advise him to pursue in order to become acquainted with the Theory of the system, we shall now introduce him to a more interesting department--the Practice of the art. Those who are unacquainted with the nature of Short Hand, commonly imagine that there is, or ought to be, a distinct character to express every individual word, and particular characters to express whole sentences; and the more any system abounds with characters of this description, the more perfect they conceive it to be. But experience has proved directly the reverse: and, setting experience out of the question, a moment's reflection must convince any thinking person, of the utter impracticability of inventing different characters to express even a tenth part of the words in our language, without rendering them so complicated as to be wholly undecipherable. The Chinese, indeed, have attempted, and they have, unhappily, succeeded in the attempt, to express every word in their language by a different character: but the consequence is, that the Chinese, with all their boasted acuteness and penetration, can hardly, during the course of the longest life, learn to decypher one half of the characters invented by the preposterous ingenuity of their writers; and the most learned men of their nation must, in the course of their reading, every day meet with words which they cannot understand, nor even read or spell: whereas with us, children of a very tender age are, in a few days, taught to name and recognize all the characters used in our language; which, being few in number, are easily remembered, and soon enable them to read every word, however difficult or new to them, and to express, in writing, every sound, or combinat...