It was in 1875, that a young man came to the author and made the astonishing request that he be taught the art of shorthand sufficiently for office use within the space of four weeks, if possible. As it had taken the author four to five years to be able to write much over one hundred words a minute, with two hours daily speed practice during most of that time, he was very much astonished at this request, and whilsthe looked in amazement at his visitor, the latter explained that a position was waiting for him in the Pennsylvania railroad office at Philadelphia, if he could master the art and gain skill in the time mentioned-about a month.

The author frankly told this caller that he was asking an impossibility, the author stating his reasons, based upon his own experience. At the same time, the author was also (being then young) conceited enough to add that he thought he could teach the art in as short a time as anybody could, and he would be glad to do the best possible under the circumstances.

At that time there were no organized schools of shorthand, and when the would-be student explained that he was willing to give fourteen hours a day or longer if necessary, to the study, the author thought he saw some opportunity of, at any rate, considerably shortening the average time, and he told the caller he would give him his answer the next day.

At that time the author was writing a sort of mixed system, with many original improvements, having found the conditions of none of the systems suitable to the very difficult work he had to do; so, that night, the author hastily looked through all the books he had collected onshorthand as presented by different authors, and, in a rough way, hurriedly planned twenty-four lessons to contain the information to be found in Benn Pitman's, Isaac Pitman's, Graham's and Munson's and other systems as used by him in actual work, making brief notes of them as well as memoranda of his own changes not to be found in those books.

This result the author explained to the would-be pupil on the next day - as necessary to be learned in order to insure success, and between the conceit of both youthful teacher and student, the task first asked for by the pupil was actually attempted, and the young student, being extraordinarily bright and giving all his days and most of his dreams to shorthand, seeing phonographic outlines in every object-the angles or houses, trees and all other objects meeting his vision - he actually mastered all the crude lessons given him and gained sufficient speed within the four weeks to hold a very easy office shorthand position, and, as the official who engaged him was a relative and disposed to be lenient, he took the position, which he continued to hold for years, arriving by successive promotions at a very important and remunerative official position with the same railroad corporation.

After taking this position, the young man in question had a great desire to obtain skill in higher work, such as court and convention re porting, and frequently accompanied the author when the latter reported court cases, meetings, political speeches, etc., for the newspapers with which he was connected. In such cases the beginner always compared afterward his notes with those of the author, who loaned them to him for that purpose: and in such comparisons the student came upon what are probably best termed the "secrets of the profession"-that is, little speed and legibility devices which, at that day, were to be found in no book, but which the author had met with in his intercourse with brother stenographers, and which, after years of use, he had forgotten were not in the text books, and which had hence not been incorporated by him in the twenty-four hastily-made lessons he had arranged for that first "quick-time" student. For instance, all works on phonography teach two forms for Th-light and heavy-but the profession never write the heavy Th, as a letter, as it is not available for rapid work and is unnecessary. Following the old rule, the author had taught his student the heavy Th and when this student came to compare his notes with his teacher's, he found that his teacher always used the light Th, the heavy only for Thr. The oversight was explained, when the student inquired, "Why not teach from the start the professional outlines in every case? Because," he added, "I have become so accustomed to writing that heavy outline for Th, that where I have not time to think, I am sure to make it, and it is hard to get out of the habit. If I had been taught the correct outlines from the start, I would have no bad habits to overcome and would gain speed easier."

This set the author to thinking, and he, in consequence, requested the student thereafter to call his attention to every deviation of that and every other kind between his (the author's) notes and the student's. The student was very vigilant in this respect, and the twenty-four crude lessons (a duplicate copy of which the author had retained for himself) were soon corrected to contain professional outlines only. In the midst of this work, a remark of the student over the difficulty of using disjoined vowels with exactness, where necessary, led the author to invent his joined vowels, which aided so much in the way of imparting the reporting style of writing from the first lesson, that those lessons soon became condensed to fifteen, and later to twelve lessons, from which twelve lessons, containing every device known to the profession, all superfluous information was eliminated. Having, in the meantime, secured, through the success of the first student, a number of others, the writer, by 1882, became convinced that, by a properly arranged day course, he could impart skill for an office shorthand position to any ordinary pupil in three months' time, providing, of course, attendance was regular and the studying done as directed.

This belief has since been proven by the thousands of students who, since 1882, have graduated from the author's schools in Philadelphia, New York, Chicago and other cities, graduates who hold today, many of them, the highest positions possible to shorthand writers, some of whom would not have been able to have at all mastered any other system. And, in all the experience of the author in teaching, there has never been even one failure to master the art with skill for an office position in three months, where attendance was regular and directions regarding study respected-necessary qualifications of prior education being included.