Page 48, illustration, fourth line, third word from end.-Supply ty, making Page 54.-The first, fourth and fifth characters should be light lines; the Page 55.-The fifth character, first column, stands for both now and in; Page 59, sixth paragraph.-Read who, instead of home. Page 62.-Some of the characters are too heavy, indicating r in several words in which it does not occur. The text will enable the student to read it Page 70, illustration.-Supply uds in rosebuds. Page 87.-The dots in the sixth line should be minute circles for hl. Page 93, illustration.-Supply con loop in inconstant. Page 99, illustration.-Supply ing dot in springing. Pages 161-4-6-9, 171-3-5-7-9, 181.-Some of the characters, owing to imperfect electrotyping, appear to be shaded, thus adding the letter r. The student will Pages 180 and 181, eleventh character.-Read xr, instead of z. Page 266, first letter in the second line from bottom of page.-Substitute v INTRODUCTION. THE following system is so radical a departure from the art of Short-hand, as embodied in the modern systems, that a full introduction seems necessary to a clear comprehension of the principles on which are based its claims to the attention of an intelligent public. Writing is an art of such importance, so universally practiced, and involving so much time and labor, both of the brain and of the hand, that ease and rapidity of execution become not only desirable, but imperative. The past fifty years have, with their bewilderment of improvements in science and art, increased the facilities for the transmission of thought, until the material means employed seem to be dematerialized, and thought flies with the rapidity of its conception. In the midst of this interesting era, this glittering succession of triumphal advances, the art of writing alone remains unchanged. The hand of the writer plods as wearily to-day as it did a century ago; and thought waiting for embodiment is cramped, its beauty tarnished, its ardor cooled, its flame extinguished, and its majesty clouded. Is it not time that this pen-burden were lifted, and thought disenthralled? So surely as all progress depends on mind, must permanent thought be borne on the wings of the pen; and any medium which shall render its recording fluent, like speech, must prove, next to speech, the richest endowment of humanity. The history of swift writing shows the art to have engaged the attention of the best intelligences of the race; that great minds have repeatedly grappled with and striven to perfect it; while the universally deplored vast labor, imposed by our present method of writing, with the very limited use of the existing systems of short-hand, show how little has been done toward solving the problem, and providing facile, rapid writing for the masses. Short-hand, or Swift Writing, may, under various names and forms, be traced to the most remote civilized nations of the earth. The Egyptians at an early day represented objects, words and ideas by a species of hieroglyphics. The Jews also used this species of writing, adding a number of arbitrary characters for important solemn and awful terms, such as God, Jehovah, etc. The Greeks practiced a similar method, which is said to have been introduced at Nicolai by Xenophon, and by which he took down the sayings of Socrates. The Latins claimed for themselves the invention of the Roman notes. About 150 B.C., Enneus invented a new system, by which the notarii recorded the language of celebrated orators. These notes consisted of 11,000 marks of his own invention, abbreviated from the Roman alphabet, in the use of which very few words were written in full, called " common marks," because intended for common use. His plan, improved by Tyro, was held in high esteem by the Romans. Plutarch rejects Enneus' claim to the invention in favor of Cicero. Eusebius credits it to Tyro, a freedman of Cicero's; while Seneca attributes the invention and cultivation of swift writing to freedmen and slaves, as Tyro, Persennius, Aquilla; whose performances were, according to the usages of the times, attributed to their patrons. Titus Vespasian was remarkably fond of short-hand, declaring its practice among his most interesting amusements. This principle of a brief alphabet and abbreviated spelling has obtained in all systems of short-hand. All that the moderns have gained over the ancients has been effected by the adoption of a simpler alphabet. As the Roman notes were simply an abridgment of the Roman alphabet, some of them were necessarily complex. In the modern systems, alphabets have been adopted of the simplest geometrical signs, such as a right line and a curve, in various positions, with a small circle, a hook and a loop, which have supplied a sufficient variety of signs for the letters of the alphabet. 66 Plutarch, in his life of Cato, the younger, tells us: This, it is said, is the only oration of Cato's that is extant. Cicero had selected a number of the swiftest writers, whom he had taught the art of abbreviating words by characters, and had placed them in different parts of the senate house; before his consulate they had no short-hand writer." Short-hand now soon came into general repute among the Romans, and was patronized and practiced by the emperors themselves. The first publication upon the subject, of which we have any correct information, was about the year 1500, from a Latin manuscript dated 1412. In the reign of Elizabeth, in 1588, Bright introduced a system of arbitrary signs for words, which, so far as is known, was the first treatise on the art in modern times. Many advances were made in the art in England during |