STENOGRAPHY, or SHORT-HAND, from confined, and yglcpgiv to write, is the art of writing in small compass, or employing characters, which, by a few strokes, express many words, and enable a pro ficient to follow a speaker, and note his discourse with accuracy. But short-hand writing is also of great importance in those private departments of life, where much is to he composed, and many writings to be put in clue form. It is of no small utility to gentlemen of the bar, who are often pressed for time, as, by means of this art, they can commit their thoughts to writing with rapidity and precision.
It is highly valuable to the clergy, who have to address the people on the most interesting subjects; and where, on that account, every thought and word should be correct. When the sentiments and ex pressions arc properly arranged in the mind, they are easily committed to short-hand writing; and, if the characters be distinctly formed, and of an adequate size, which they ought always to be, they can be caught, by a glance of the eye, in the course of de livery, and without seeming to read much, which is sometimes disagreeable to the audience, the dis course may be given, with all the correctness and elegance with which it was composed, and this can scarcely be done, if there be a total dependence on the memory.
The history of short-hand cannot be accurately as certained; hut it may be presumed, that when the art of writing became common, certain contractions and arbitrary tokens would be contrived for private use; and attempts would soon be made to employ marks and characters, for assisting to recollect such speeches and harangues as were supposed to be worthy of re membrance.
Hieroglyphics are a kind of short-hand writing, and certain signs and emblems, as memoranda and means of reckoning, were found to be in use among the people in South America, when they were first discovered. Stenography appears to have been early in use among the Greeks and Romans, and having found its way into Britain, it has made rapid progress within these 150 years, and has now arrived at great perfection. To acquire this useful art there is less difficulty than to become master of the Greek al phabet, and the common contractions of that lan guage.
The difficulty which a learner finds to read what he has written is the most discouraging part of the pro cess; and it is generally on this account that so many have abandoned the pursuit after they have begun it.
But most assuredly, if the rules be attended to which are given in the following system, the whole will be 3 P come easy and delightful. The chief embarrassment has arisen from writing short-hand, according to some systems, altogether without vowels; but although this may be done, and read by a profi6ient, yet the diffi culty attending it is discouraging to a beginner.
The method recommended in this system, and which I have found in practice to be completely effec tual, is to express the long vowels, but to omit those which have a short sound. This is in perfect analogy to the method of reading the Hebrew language with out the points. The letters aleph, he, yod, ain, and tau, express the vowels a, e, i, o, and u, when they are sounded long; and wherever they are not in use, which sometimes happens in whole words of that lan guage, these vocables are read without difficulty, for by adding the consonants together, a short or obscure vowel sound must be heard, and the word perfectly intelligible. Thus the following sentence, " The commands of God are steadfast," could be easily read, although written without a vowel, in this manner, The commnds f Gd r stdfst ; but every obscu rity will be removed if, in general, at least one long vowel be expressed in every word, though in those which are of frequent occurrence, and easily read, this rule may be omitted.
Much has been done to render this short-hand ex peditious as well as easily read. By using dots instead of characters for the long vowels, there is a great saving both of time and labour; for, excepting in a very few instances, the vowels occur much more frequently than the consonants. It has been the object of the author also to have all the characters as simple as possible, and to apply the more simple forms to represent those letters which more frequently occur. Thus straight lines, in perpendicular, ob lique, and horizontal directions, were first adopted, then a circle, with several of its segments, and after wards some parts of an oval and oblong figure. Lastly, a few loops were added, to represent the cha racters which were still wanting; but these loops frequently facilitate the joinings, and in every case are easily formed.