Universal Stenography, or Chinese Shorthand: The Story of Its Conception and the Struggles Through Which It Has Been Compelled to Pass in the Uphill Fight for Success (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

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Excerpt from Universal Stenography, or Chinese Shorthand: The Story of Its Conception and the Struggles Through Which It Has Been Compelled to Pass in the Uphill Fight for Success

In the year 1883 circumstances so shaped them selves that I found myself teaching stenography to a bright class of public-school teachers in Sacramento, California, and while repeating the vowel sounds, as one has to so constantly in teaching stenography, I became interested in noting the possibilities lying in these many phonetic characters. As I was writ ing the word China, it dawned upon me that I could write any word in any language by the aid of these various characters representing sounds. To do this, I must confine myself to the corresponding style, eliminating all the logograms, word signs, and abbreviations. The thought was with me night and day, until one day I was appointed by the W. C. T. U. To call upon the Rev. A. J. Becker to deliver an address on Temperance. Knowing him to be a master of many languages, I told him I had made a discovery which would be of great benefit to foreign missionaries. He was willing to learn from a woman, and so at his request I explained to him the principles of the system. He requested that I take him as a pupil, and to this, of course, I gladly consented. After one week's study of the Pitman system of stenography, he announced his belief in the feasibility of my work, and requested that I write what he said while talking in some foreign language. He began dictating to me a letter in a foreign language to his wife, speaking slowly, while I wrote very carefully, placing every vowel and double vowel in its proper place, but using at that time no other characters than those found in Pitman's system.

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