the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Since the revival of learning in the fifteenth century, its dissemination may be divided into four principal periods.

Period I, from the publication of the first alphabetic system by John Willis, in 1612, to that of the matured system of Mason, in 1682. During this period the system most used was that invented by Rich, which was afterward practiced, amended and republished by Dr. Dodridge.

Period II extends from 1682 to the introduction of Taylor's, in 1786, during which time Mason's system enjoyed the greatest share of the public favor. It was republished by Gurny in 1751, and is practiced by his descendants, as reporters to the British government, to the present time.

Period III reaches from 1786 to 1837, at which time was published "Pitman's Phonography." During this period Taylor's was more used than any other, but public favor was bestowed on it with Byron's, of 1767, Mayor's, of 1789, and Lewis', of 1815. In the year of 1831, in the United States, appeared "Gould's System of Short-hand," which was compiled from late European publications, with improvements. It had the merit of simplicity, and was extensively patronized, but was destined to give place to the incoming systems of phonography.

Period IV, beginning at 1837, reaches to the present, during which time the practice of phonetic short-hand has been widely extended in Great Britain and the United States.

Of phonography, Ben Pitman, in his preface to the "Manual of Phonography," published in 1860, says: "In 1837 Mr. Isaac Pitman, of Bath, England, published a

system of short-hand under the title of 'Stenographic Sound-hand.' This publication quietly sold, but excited no general interest. Three years later the Penny Post Law was passed in England, and that same year beheld the publication, by Mr. Pitman, of a small sheet entitled 'Phonography.' Either event was alike significant of the needs of the age. An entire system of writing was elaborated on this sheet; a system so simple and philosophic in its principles, tending so certainly to that combination of celerity and legibility, which are the great requisites of a system of writing for the masses, that it attracted great. attention in England. Suggestions for its improvement were forwarded to its ingenious inventor from many quarters. Men willing to spread the knowledge of the art, which promised to be so useful to civilized man, traveled over England, Scotland and Ireland, pioneered by some of the inventor's own brothers. Ever improving with its spread, the art assumed consistency and importance, till it finally became recognized by many eminent men as one of the most useful inventions of the age. Its legibility and ease of acquisition soon caused it to drive away the arbitrary stenographies, out of which it had itself insensibly grown. But this was not all, for phonography not only supplied the place of all the systems that had preceded it, but it also met requirements which the stenographic systems had never attempted to satisfy. It offered to the merchant, the lawyer, the editor, the author, the divine, and the student, a means of correspondence, and of recording thought and events, with a velocity five-fold greater than they ever could attain by the use of common script; and upon the reporter it has at last bestowed the

means of secure and legible verbatim reporting, a power unknown before its advent; for the old stenographers were forced, almost invariably, to memorize much of their reports, and that portion of them which they did indite was illegible to all save the writer, and often even unto him. But now, by the aid of phonography, the stirring and important words of the statesman, the sacred oratory of the pulpit, and the instructive lessons of the lecturer, are being daily transferred to the note-book of the phonographer with a vivid distinctness and accuracy which, to the writer of long-hand, and even to the stenographer, must appear little less than miraculous. He who has stood beside a phonographic reporter, and beheld his steady pen paint the flying words of a rapid speaker, cannot forget the feelings of wonder and admiration which the sight never fails to call forth. And when we inform the reader that, even when written at verbatim speed, phonographic writing has frequently been handed to the compositor and used by him as copy from which to set type, he cannot but be ready to acknowledge that great indeed and wonderful is the boon which Mr. Isaac Pitman has bestowed upon the AngloSaxon race."

Interesting, indeed, is the foregoing enthusiastic tribute by his brother to the ingenuity and value of the beautiful system of phonography, as invented by Mr. Isaac Pitman. In the year 1847 phonography was introduced into the United States. In 1843 a phonetic society, consisting of persons who had learned to write it, was established in Great Britain; the object being to promote its general adoption. A similar society was established in the United. States in 1849. In 1850 a phonetic council of one hun

dred persons, from both Great Britain and America, was elected by a popular vote of the phonographers of each country, for the purpose of effecting further improvements in the art. This council had the system under revision for two years, and, it is reasonable to suppose, brought it as near perfection as is possible with its alphabetic basis.

Since this revision there have appeared several works on the art, all adopting the same alphabet, and differing chiefly in their presentation of the subject. Chief among these are Ben Pitman's, Langley's, Webster's, Munson's, Graham's, Lindsley's and Burns'. Lindsley's, called "Takigrafy," is a phonography differing from all others in its vowel system, and in a slightly differing consonant alphabet arrangement. The vowels of phonography do not admit of being written in connection with the consonants, but after the consonant outline of a word is written, the vowels, represented by dots and short dashes, are written by the side of the consonants, each by a separate movement of the pen, greatly retarding the rapidity of the writer. This style of writing constitutes what is called the corresponding style of phonography, which is at best but a slow and disconnected method of recording thought, and of little practical utility. Why most works on the art insist on the thorough mastery of the corresponding style, which must be finally laid aside for the more rapid reporting style, is, to most persons, inexplicable. The more recent systems proceed at once to the unfolding of the more rapid method. The vowels of Lindsley's Tachygraphy consist of small semicircles and short dashes, so arranged as to be written in their place as in the writing of long-hand. This arrangement of

vowels, which is an improvement on Pitman's corresponding style, however, proves too slow and difficult of execution for the purposes of reporting, and hence only an occasional vowel is used in its more rapid style. This system presents three different styles, called the Corresponding, the Note Taker's, and the Reporting Style.

None of the existing systems of phonography are purely phonetic, but all introduce more or less of arbitrary word, prefix, suffix and phrase signs, and are to this extent stenographic. A comparison of Pitman's Phonography with the stenographies of his day will show that he adopted, but in a more definite and expanded system, the stenographic method of writing vowels. The stenographies employed a single dot for the five vowels, which, when the consonant outline of a word had been written, was placed near it to show that a vowel belonged there, leaving the reader to determine, from the context, which vowel was intended by the dot.

Pitman's change consisted in a representation of each vowel element, by a distinct dot, or dash, each of which is used precisely as the stenographer used the single dot, viz, first writing the consonant outline of the word. and then placing dots for vowels. In regard to the consonants, most systems of stenography are phonic, Pitman's change consisting in a clearer phonic analysis, and a different arrangement of lines, but used in the same way. When we consider the origin of the lines used by the stenographer and by Pitman, we find that both derived their alphabetic lines from the circle with its various radii.

The following presentation of Gould's Stenography,