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the subject is familiar, and by this course, the writing and reading of short-hand may in a few days be made easy, useful, and amusing, while the art cannot fail to become a potent labour and time-saving engine, not only for the actual accumulation and preservation of knowledge, but for the cultivation and expansion of the mind, and improvement of the memory. For by judicious exercise, this faculty can be trained to receive more, and retain longer, whatever may be worthy of its attention.

This improvement, however, does not depend on the substitution of one faculty for another, but on their mutual co-operation, as auxiliary, each to the other. For though we are able by short-hand to preserve a literal copy of any particular subject, for our gratification and instruction, thereby increasing our stock of knowledge; yet, if memory be left to languish in sickly inactivity, and thus gradually lose its energies and become enervated, for the want of proper exercise, the loss is greater than the gain.

The memory, then, while it should not be overburdened with unnecessary verbiage, should never be released from that habitual exertion on which its own preservation and usefulness depend; the great secret of preserving and improving the memory, consists in giving it a sufficient quantity of the right kind of aliment, affording due time for its digestion, and no more relaxation than is absolutely necessary to its health and vigour.

The person who can write rapidly, does not consequently substitute writing for memory, but employs it as an assistant; and every person when committing words to paper for his future use and improvement, should endeavour to fix in memory, at least the leading features of the subject, depending on short-hand, for that only which memory cannot recall.

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SHORT-HAND

WRITING;

BY WHICH THE LANGUAGE OF A PUBLIC SPEAKER MAY BE RECORDED
IN A STYLE BOTH BEAUTIFUL AND LEGIBLE, AS FAST AS DELIVERED

COMPILED FROM THE LATEST EUROPEAN PUBLICATIONS

WITH SUNDRY IMPROVEMENTS,

Adapted to the present state of Literature in the United States.

BY M. T. C. GOULD,

STENOGRAPHER.

REVISED STEREOTYPE EDITION, WITH NEW ENGRAVINGS.

PHILADELPHIA:
URIAH HUNT & SON,

No. 44 NORTH FOURTH STREET.

AND FOR SALE BY BOOKSELLERS GENERALLY THROUGHOUT
THE UNITED STATES.

EXPLANATION OF THE STENOGRAPHIC TREE.

1. Elementary Key, or figure from which all the characters of this system are derived.

2. Diagram, representing the roots of the tree, and showing at one view twenty alphabetic characters, evidently springing from the figure below.

3. The four prominent branches, exhibiting the same charac ters, upon a reduced scale, and in classified order, with their respective names-viz. the 1st limb, all right lines, s, t, d, r, f or v; 2d limb, semicircles, k or q, n, ch, g or j; 3d limb, a small circle with a line added, m, p, h, b, 1, w; 4th limb, a quarter of the same small circle, with a line added, x, sh, th, y, ious.

4. The body or trunk of the tree, exhibiting the same characters, which have four uses, viz. 1st, that of alphabetic letters; 2d, that of representing, when used alone, a few of the most frequent words; 3d, a few prefixes; and, 4th, a few terminations.

5. The words at the right and left of the trunk, which are, in short writing, represented by individual letters.

6. The prefixes which are represented by individual stenographic characters, placed near a word, just before it, but not joined to it in writing.

7. The terminations which are represented by stenographic characters without lifting the pen.

8. A few arbitrary signs at the top of the tree-all derived from the same source, but made on a much smaller scale, and used for certain words, phrases, prefixes, terminations, &c. chiefly determined by their relative position, as it respects the line of writing, or the particular word of which they form part or parts.

ENTERED according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1831, by M. T. C. GOULD, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court, of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

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