been well repaid for my visit; and I have since thought that members of school committees should look for something more than mental qualifications in those whom they would employ. T. B.

PHONOGRAPHY NOT ADAPTED TO COMMON USE.

THIS truly beautiful and scientific style of writing, the invention of Isaac Pitman of England, has been considerably introduced within the past few years, both as a form for correspondence and for verbatim reporting, more especially for the latter purpose, for which it is peculiarly adapted from its brevity and contractibility.

That it will ever take the place of ordinary long-hand, as some suppose, is highly improbable, both on account of its complexity and its extreme delicacy. To be sure, the characters used are in themselves, as to form alone, the perfection of simplicity; being for the consonant sounds a straight line and a curved, or an arc of ninety degrees and a radius, and for the vowel sounds, a dot and a hyphen; but these forms, in order to a full representation of the elementary sounds of the language, are varied so much in position, besides being made heavy and light, and, furthermore, the appliances for the consonant combinations are so numerous and answer so many conditions, that the system really becomes very complicated and beyond the reach of many minds that experience no difficulty in learning the ordinary long-hand. This latter system employs, for each letter of the alphabet, a distinct form, without any reference whatever to its position, weight, or direction. These forms being once learned, writing legibly becomes a feasible thing immediately, fluency and skill being the results of subsequent practice. The learner has only one fact to remember in respect to each character, namely, its shape. Its size, weight, position, locality, have nothing to do with its signification. He may draw it large or small, locate it on the line, above or below the line, incline it to the right or left or make it vertical, according as it suits his taste, provided only, he retains the shape or even an approximation to it, and it will answer the purpose. It is still legible.

Not so with phonography. It is the aim of this system to give

a distinct representation for every elementary sound in the language; to do which, it uses the few simple forms mentioned above in every condition of which they are capable. In learning its alphabet therefore, one has to fix in mind not only a form, but also the weight and position of the same, making it a complex operation of the mind, and one which many would be utterly unable to exercise, so far as to acquire the entire details of the system. One must remember that the sound or power of "t" is represented by a straight, light, vertical line; that of "k" by a straight, light, horizontal line; that of "b" by a straight, heavy line, inclined with its top to the left hand; that of "f" by a light curve, inclined with its top to the left; that "e" long is represented by a heavy dot, placed at the top of a vertical, or inclined, or at the beginning of a horizontal consonant character, while "a" broad is represented by the same heavy dot at the foot or end of the corresponding characters. The failure to fulfil any one of these conditions would either change or destroy the signification of the character. The representations for all the simple sounds being learned, there are, in addition to these, a great many appendages for the more concise expression of the consonant combinations, all which are as important a part of the system as the simple alphabet. The hooks for " "f," "v," "1," "r," and "n," the circle for "s," and the half lengths for the terminations "t" or "d," and other convenient appliances for brevity in writing, must all be learned before one can be said to have acquired this system.

The impracticability of such a complicated system for the great mass of the people is obvious, considering only the difficulty of remembering so many details of form, position, and so forth. But its extreme delicacy is another obstacle to its general introduction. If a person knows the twenty-six letters of our common script alphabet, no matter how cramped or tremulous may be his hand, or whether he write with a fine pen or pine stick, draw his characters upright, inverted, or horizontal, provided the result is anything approaching the prescribed shape of the characters, the writing is legible. Margin is allowed for a lack of skill or care. But how is it with phonography? The utmost care and accuracy are required in making each form. Every possible modification of each simple element being used in the system to represent the various sounds,

any unintentional alteration or modification, however minute, is to be carefully guarded against. Giving the wrong direction to a line; making a curve for a straight line; drawing it heavy when it should be light; placing a "hook" upon the wrong side or end of a character; making a vowel dot on the line when it should be a little distance above it; placing the same dot at the middle of a curve or straight consonant sign when it should be at one end; meeting with a stray hair or speck of sand upon the page and thus marring the forms of the characters; any one of these errors or defects would either render the particular portion so affected meaningless, or give it a signification different from what was intended; and if such imperfections were frequent, the manuscript would be entirely illegible. There is little or no margin for such deviations from the established form, as only a very careful person can avoid, and hence the system is not adapted to general use. Mathematical accuracy in their style of writing is not a characteristic of many individuals, but it must be of those who expect to become good phonographers.

It may be said that a great many do learn phonography, notwithstanding its difficulties. A great many commence the study, but few ever attain proficiency in the practice of the art, or continue the practice for any considerable time. Most who begin, even if they learn the principles, find that it requires, in order to write legibly, a steadiness of arm and a degree of care that they are either unable or unwilling to exert, and so, after a little while, drop the practice which they began, perhaps, with great enthusiasm.

It is, at first, more difficult to read one's own writing than to execute it, and this acts as a discouragement to many. Not a little practice in deciphering one's characters is required, before even tolerable readiness is attained in reading. Instead of suggesting its signification immediately to the eye, as does a character of common script, each sign is at first a study. Every condition before mentioned requires consideration ere its exact force is perceived. The experience of Dickens, as related in David Copperfield, is the experience of every one who attempts to acquire this art.

The number of those who, having acquired some degree of fluency in writing, ever make any practical use of the art, is few. Those who attain such a degree of skill that they can take down a

speech or lecture verbatim, are still fewer, and must possess a natural aptitude for rapidity in writing, just as an excellent performer upon a musical instrument must possess an inborn fitness therefor.

What we have written is not to be construed as detracting from the merits of phonography as an art beautiful and useful. We have only attempted to show that it can never take the place, as some imagine it will, of the common long-hand. It is too intellectual an art for the masses. Students may acquire it and use it in their correspondence with each other, in reporting lectures, and in their private writings. Newspaper reporters can use it to great advantage. For verbatim reporting it is the briefest, and hence the best system ever invented. All other systems of stenography are giving way to it. It accomplishes all that can be desired. The proceedings of Congress, published in full in the "Globe," are reported in Pitman's phonography, and we venture to say that all the other absolutely verbatim reports made in this country, are executed in the same style. Too difficult of acquisition by the masses, however, its practice will ever be confined to the few, and in them it will be as much an accomplishment, as is in any one the art of playing well upon the piano or organ.

AMATEUR.

RANDOM THOUGHTS.

HAVING been, for many years, a teacher in the old Bay State, and still retaining a deep interest in the welfare of schools, I have, now and then, visited them in this and in the neighboring States, and watched the progress of education as the tide of life has rolled westward, and ever as I have returned to our own schools, it has been with a feeling of pride, that Massachusetts has yet no superior, as regards her facilities for public education, on this side of the Atlantic. Our school system is good, I know no better; and yet I have sometimes thought, that here and there, in the schools of younger communities, we could find new features, the addition of which would be a great improvement, if engrafted upon it. Their systems, it is true, have been mainly copied from New England, and New England teachers are scattered all over the West, while

their schools rank among the highest in these very improvements. But I have thought that these teachers, may be, when they emigrated from among us, threw away many trammels with which they were here surrounded, and, breathing in a freer intellectual atmosphere, as they neared the prairies, became freer in their thoughts, less conservative in their actions, in short, yielding to —in the growing, progressive tendencies of their surroundings, became individual originators, rather than expert copyists. Hence, in some respects, the contrast between them and us their schools and ours.

For instance: as we go beyond the boundaries of New England, we find the natural sciences more attended to, while we run into the exact, and into the niceties in the departments of language. We consider a boy well educated, if he can compute readily interest and percentage; and if he can calculate an eclipse, he is deeply learned; while he may not know a dandelion from an anemone, or quartz from mica. He must know how to change our currency into that of Great Britain, but may be entirely ignorant of the great changes going on in his own system,- from food to chyme, from chyme to chyle, from chyle to blood, from blood to bone and muscle. He must be acquainted with the laws of electricity, and know the theory of the proper adjustment of lightning rods on a house; but of the whole electric network running over his body, he may be as ignorant as the man in the moon. We are very strenuous for a clear understanding of the principles of grammar, and a knowledge of the dead languages. By us, a person is thought very ignorant who is not familiar with Cicero's Orations, but the sermons which the stones cry out, may be all unheeded. A child may be so trained in our schools, as never to put a nominative for an objective, or an adjective for an adverb, but the great language of nature may awaken in him no sign of recognition.

The pursuit of language and the exercise of numbers, may be all very well, they make deep thinkers, close reasoners, and good memorists; but it does seem to me that one reason why we are put on this earth, is to learn of the things of earth; and that children should be taught of the tangible things about them, as early, at least, as they should be taught to turn their minds inside out to find some old Greek noun, or some half-forgotten table of