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 OS ANG 

 
 GREGG EDUCATIONAL MONOGRAPHS 
 
 Making Shorthand 
 Teaching Effective 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN ROBERT GREGG 
 
 ( A paper read before the Eastern Commercial 
 Teachers' Association.) 
 
 44603 
 
 THE GREGG PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON* SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 LONDON
 
 COPYRIGHT, 19 2 I, BY 
 THE GREGG PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 cs8
 
 H F 
 
 MAKING SHORTHAND 
 
 TEACHING EFFECTIVE 
 
 (From The Teaching of Shorthand) 
 
 THE topic "Making Advanced 
 Shorthand Teaching More Ef- 
 fective" was assigned to me while I 
 was away on a trip to Cuba. My 
 associates chose a title for me cal- 
 culated to raise great expectations — 
 expectations which I do not think I 
 shall be able to satisfy. 
 
 With your permission, I am going to 
 revise the title by omitting the word 
 "advanced," because I have always 
 maintained that the theory and ad- 
 vanced work in shorthand are so inter- 
 twined that the methods adopted in 
 the theory work will largely determine 
 the effectiveness of the advanced work. 
 
 I have had the privilege of visiting 
 schools teaching shorthand in nearly
 
 4 The Teaching of Shorthand 
 
 every country in Europe in which 
 shorthand is taught to any extent, and 
 in many other countries, including far- 
 ofF Australia. As a result of my ob- 
 servations, I am thoroughly convinced 
 that the methods of teaching shorthand 
 in the United States are far in ad- 
 vance of those of any other country in 
 the world. After saying this, you will 
 probably be surprised when I record 
 my belief that, in some respects at least, 
 the methods of teaching shorthand in 
 this country are at least twenty years 
 behind the methods of teaching pen- 
 manship, and at least ten years behind 
 the methods of teaching typewriting. 
 
 FLUENCY NECESSARY 
 
 You will ask me on what I base this 
 opinion and what should be done to 
 effect an improvement. Let me say 
 at once that I believe that the remedy 
 is simply this: to teach students to
 
 The Teaching of Shorthand 5 
 
 write shorthand rapidly and accurately 
 from the firsts instead of teaching them 
 to write shorthand slowly and carefully. 
 
 Perhaps you will say that there is 
 nothing startHng about that. But, my 
 friends, I beheve if that principle were 
 put into effect in all schools teaching 
 shorthand it would completely revo- 
 lutionize the teaching of the subject. 
 
 I frankly acknowledge that the phrase 
 ** write slowly and carefully" has become 
 so habitual with me that, although I 
 have been convinced for some time that 
 it embodies a fallacy and is pedagogi- 
 cally unsound, I found myself using it 
 — through force of habit — when I 
 had occasion to take a class a few weeks 
 ago. 
 
 Of course, my remarks are not in- 
 tended to apply to the teachers here 
 assembled. Doubtless, as you are so 
 progressive as to attend these meetings, 
 you are already acting upon the guiding 
 principle I have enunciated.
 
 6 The Teaching of Shorthand 
 
 LESSONS FROM PENMANSHIP 
 
 In explanation of the statements I 
 made about the teaching of penman- 
 ship and typewriting, I wish first to 
 direct your attention to penmanship. 
 You may remember that at one time 
 penmanship was universally taught by 
 placing before the student a headline 
 which he was to copy. He was sup- 
 posed to write several lines in a cir- 
 cumscribed space, and probably many 
 of you have seen my friend, Mr. A. N. 
 Palmer, give a very graphic and amus- 
 ing imitation of how a small boy wrote 
 under those conditions. What was the 
 result.'' It was that the student pain- 
 fully copied, or rather drezvy the forms 
 in imitation of those in the headline. 
 When he attempted to write without a 
 headline and at any speed, he lost 
 complete control of the forms. 
 
 All of that has passed away. The 
 successful teachers of penmanship to- 
 day in America do not use copybooks;
 
 The Teaching of Shorthand 7 
 
 they use free-hand exercises, and they 
 urge the student to write these forms 
 rhythmically, swiftly. In penmanship 
 the idea of rapid, continuous movementy 
 as well as form, is kept before the student 
 from the first lesson. Indeed there is 
 an impetus given to the work by 
 counting as the forms are made. The 
 result is that the students who are 
 taught penmanship in this way write 
 rapidly, tirelessly, continuously, and 
 with a marvelous degree of uniformity. 
 
 In shorthand teaching a very large 
 percentage of teachers still adhere to 
 the old-fashioned copybook way of 
 teaching. It is the traditional way, 
 just as it was for a long time the tradi- 
 tional way of teaching penmanship. 
 These teachers compel their students 
 to copy laboriously the shorthand forms 
 in a circumscribed space, and instruct 
 them to write them ''slowly and care- 
 fully.'' The idea that the forms are 
 to be written freely, or that the object
 
 8 The Teaching of Shorthand 
 
 of shorthand is rapidity of writing, 
 is taboo in most schools. I am not 
 going to stress this point farther, be- 
 cause the time at our disposal will not 
 permit me to do so. 
 
 APPLYING TYPEWRITING PRINCIPLES 
 
 Now as to typewriting: It is not so 
 very long ago that there was absolutely 
 no real method employed in the teach- 
 ing of typewriting. The student was 
 seated at the machine, and the opera- 
 tion of the space bar and the shift-key 
 was explained to him. He was told to 
 use the left hand for the letters on the 
 left-hand side of the keyboard, the right 
 hand for the letters on the right-hand 
 side, and the thumb for the space bar. 
 With these general directions he was 
 left to shift for himself. Even at that 
 time there were a few touch operators, 
 such as Mr. Frank McGurrin and his 
 brother, Charles H. McGurrin, who 
 gave demonstrations not only in this
 
 The Teaching of Shorthand 9 
 
 country but all over the world. These 
 phenomenal writers, who could use the 
 machine without looking at the keys, 
 were able to write at the marvelous 
 speed of over one hundred fifty words 
 in one minute on "Now is the time for 
 all good men to come to the aid of the 
 party," and, what is still more mar- 
 velous, they did not have more than 
 three or four errors in each line! But 
 they were regarded as freaks — people 
 who had special ability or genius, who 
 had acquired by extraordinary concen- 
 tration the ability to do the unusual — 
 just like the armless freaks in the side 
 show who write with a pen between 
 their toes. There were a few teachers 
 — Mr. Bates Torrey in Boston, Mr. 
 Griffin in this city, and Mr. Van Sant 
 in Omaha — who maintained that it 
 was possible to teach typewriting by 
 touch in the regular school work with- 
 out any appreciable lengthening of the 
 course. Teachers of shorthand and
 
 10 The Teaching of Shorthand 
 
 typewriting, however, were utterly 
 skeptical on the subject until Mr. Van 
 Sant came to a teachers' convention, 
 just like this, and brought with him 
 some of his regular students who wrote 
 by touch for several minutes at the rate 
 of fifty or sixty words a minute. As 
 a result of that demonstration touch 
 typewriting swept all over the country. 
 Since that time I have always thought 
 that the spread of touch typewriting, 
 initiated by that demonstration of Mr. 
 Van Sant's students, is the finest illus- 
 tration that could be given of the 
 value of conventions such as these. 
 It raised the teaching of typewriting 
 to a new plane, to a scientific plane, 
 and it is impossible to estimate the 
 amount of good that was accomplished 
 in consequence. If the teaching of 
 typewriting had remained in the chaotic 
 and unscientific condition in which it 
 was before the general adoption of 
 touch typewriting in the schools, it is
 
 The Teaching of Shorthand ii 
 
 safe to say that the volume of work 
 turned out by the operators in the 
 government service during the war 
 would have been about one-half of 
 what was actually accomplished. That, 
 of course, is only one phase of it, be- 
 cause the advance made in the teaching 
 of typewriting has benefited the entire 
 world of business to an incalculable 
 extent. 
 
 After a little while there came, through 
 the Business Shows, the typewriting 
 speed contests. Gradually, the records 
 of the "champions" went up to about 
 eighty or ninety words a minute. With 
 each contest there was an advance of 
 just a few words a minute. At that 
 time the teacher who would argue that it 
 was possible to reach one hundred words 
 a minute on the typewriter was an ex- 
 ceedingly optimistic individual. I re- 
 member that the ultimate speed to be 
 attained by the champions was a matter 
 of keen discussion, and that there was a
 
 12 The Teachhig of Shorthand 
 
 concensus of opinion that it was humanly- 
 impossible to operate the machine at 
 more than one hundred words a minute. 
 
 Then came another factor. The type- 
 writer companies began to realize the 
 advertising advantages of high speed 
 records made on their machines, and 
 they employed efficiency experts to 
 undertake the scientific training of 
 some of their operators. You all know 
 what happened. Suddenly the records 
 made in the contests shot up twenty or 
 thirty words a minute. Soon they 
 were far above one hundred words a 
 minute, and they have now reached 
 somewhere in the neighborhood of one 
 hundred fifty words a minute. That is 
 to say, they are now fifty per cent 
 higher than what was believed to be 
 humanly possible a few years ago. 
 
 I was at the Business Show in Boston 
 last Monday night, and saw a young 
 girl who had entered a business school 
 after September first last win a cup by
 
 The Teaching of Shorthand 13 
 
 writing over seventy words a minute net 
 for fifteen minutes. Here you have the 
 case of a girl in less than seven months 
 of regular school work attaining a speed 
 equal to the championship speed of 
 ten or twelve years ago. A speed, too, 
 that when accuracy is considered, com- 
 pletely eclipses the celebrated demon- 
 strators and champions of even ten or 
 twelve years ago, because to-day ten 
 words are deducted for each error, where 
 only one word was deducted in the early 
 contests. 
 
 Now, why has touch typewriting 
 advanced so rapidly under the skilled 
 training of the operators by efficiency 
 experts employed by the typewriter 
 companies.'' Or, to broaden the ques- 
 tion a little, why has the average teach- 
 ing of touch typewriting in good schools 
 advanced so marvelously under the 
 instruction of teachers who have studied 
 the methods employed by the efficiency 
 experts of the typewriter companies .''
 
 14 The Teaching of Shorthand 
 
 I believe the answer is to be found, 
 as it is in the case of penmanship, in 
 the statement that the teachers keep 
 before the students from the beginning 
 the end to be attained^ and that is rapidity 
 as well as accuracy. They start the 
 student right; they see that the posture 
 is right; that the method of doing the 
 work is right; that the student is kept 
 alert and enthusiastic from the very 
 first day and all through the course; 
 above all, they aim to eliminate every 
 false motion. 
 
 EARLY BAD HABITS PERSIST 
 
 Now, for another phase of this ques- 
 tion: Suppose that one of the experts 
 employed by the typewriter companies 
 was asked to select an operator to enter 
 a contest at a high rate of speed to be 
 held a year from now, and that he had 
 his choice of a good operator writing 
 seventy words a minute who had been 
 out in the business world for two or
 
 The Teaching of Shorthand 15 
 
 three years, or a girl of equal ability who 
 was still in school and could write thirty 
 words a minute. Which do you think he 
 would select to train for the contest? 
 One would naturally suppose that he 
 would select the operator who had a 
 start of forty words a minute, and who 
 had been seasoned by practical business 
 experience. But I am positive that the 
 expert would select the girl who was 
 still in school; for the reason that the 
 operator who had been out in business 
 for two or three years would, in all 
 probability, have acquired certain time- 
 wasting habits which would require 
 more time to eliminate than would be 
 required to increase the speed of the 
 student to a higher speed than that of 
 the girl who had been out in business 
 for some time. 
 
 Our own experience in training writers 
 for rapid shorthand work has been 
 precisely the same as that of the type- 
 writer experts. I remember that in
 
 1 6 The Teaching of Shorthafid 
 
 the only real experience of that kind 
 which we had, a great deal of time and 
 effort was necessary to get a very fine 
 writer to acquire greater facility. She 
 had acquired a certain uniform method 
 of writing, and it seemed impossible to 
 "force" her speed beyond that point. 
 In the case of younger writers, just out 
 of school, we could see definite progress 
 from week to week, but in her case for 
 quite a long time there was no per- 
 ceptible progress. She wrote a very 
 precise style, and it seemed impossible 
 for her to get a more rapid one. She 
 did finally succeed, and she made a 
 record as a writer of which she had 
 reason to be proud, but I am convinced 
 that if we had taken her through the 
 course from the beginning it would 
 have required less time. 
 
 The point I am trying to make is 
 that the way to make shorthand teach- 
 ing more effective is to drill the students 
 in correct habits from the hegi^ining, and
 
 The Teaching of Shorthand 17 
 
 that we must keep before them the idea of 
 rapidity of execution. 
 
 In teaching shorthand we have given 
 too Httle thought to the right posture 
 and to the development of swift, effort- 
 less writing from the beginning. Many 
 teachers place such emphasis on slow, 
 careful writing that the hahit of slow 
 movement is fastened on the student. 
 Afterwards, in the advanced work, the 
 student finds it difficult, and sometimes 
 impossible, to overcome the sluggish, 
 painfully precise style thus acquired. 
 He has no facility in "getting around 
 corners,'* as it were. Under pressure 
 his notes go to pieces, just as the pen- 
 manship of the "copybook" penman- 
 ship student went to pieces when 
 rapidity was required. 
 
 It is not sufficient to talk about 
 these things; they must be enforced by 
 daily drill. The manner in which the 
 teacher gives the instruction is all im- 
 portant. If he is enthusiastic and ener-
 
 1 8 The Teaching of Shorthand 
 
 getic; if he insists upon the student 
 working continuously and rapidly; if 
 he imparts snap and vigor to the work, 
 there will be an increase in the interest 
 of the student, a deeper appreciation 
 of the purpose in view, and of the way 
 in which that purpose is to be attained. 
 
 [Editor's Note. — Mr. Gregg concluded by telling 
 some of his observations in visiting shorthand class- 
 rooms. He also gave some blackboard illustrations 
 of his methods of drill for speed worLJ 
 
 4 4 6 3
 
 GREGG EDUCATIONAL MONOGRAPHS 
 
 A series of monographs dealing with definite phases 
 of education, shorthand, and commercial training. The 
 following titles are now available: 
 
 MAKING SHORTHAND TEACHING EFFECTIVE. 
 By John Robert Gregg. Mr. Gregg discusses some 
 new tendencies in methods of teaching shorthand 
 of great value to teachers. 24 pages; bound in heavy 
 art paper covers 20 cents net 
 
 HANDWRITING EFFICIENCY IN JUNIOR AND 
 SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLS. By J. N. Snesrud. 
 The relation of longhand to shorthand and how a 
 development of shorthand skill early in the course 
 leads to far more effective results in all the in- 
 dividual's education are ably discussed by Mr. 
 Snesrud. 58 pages; bound in heavy art paper 
 covers 30 cents net 
 
 TYPEWRITING THROUGH RHYTHMICAL CON- 
 TROL. By A. B. Crosier. Mr. Crosier presents 
 a new idea in the acquirement of skill in typewriting. 
 36 pages; bound in heavy paper covers, 20 cents net 
 
 THE FOURTEEN POINTS IN SHORTHAND 
 TEACHING. By Hubert A. Hagar. The essentials 
 of technique in teaching shorthand are effectively 
 presented and applied. 28 pages; bound in heavy 
 art paper covers 20 cents net 
 
 OBSTACLES TO THE ATTAINMENT OF SPEED 
 IN SHORTHAND. Two papers, one by Frederick 
 R. Beygrau, dealing with the Mental Obstacles; the 
 other, by H. H. Arnston, dealing with the Manual 
 Obstacles. The sticking points in the acquirement 
 of shorthand speed are treated exhaustively from 
 two angles. 48 pages; bound in heavy art paper 
 covers 25 cents net 
 
 THE EDUCATIONAL AND PRACTICAL VALUE OF 
 THE STUDY OF SHORTHAND. By Rupert P. 
 SoRelle. Mr. SoRelle analyzes the processes of 
 learning shorthand and how they affect the student's 
 educational development and lead to practical ap- 
 plication. 28 pages ; bound in heavy art paper 
 covers 20 cents net 
 
 Other Titles in Preparation 
 
 Prices subject to change without notice 
 
 THE GREGG PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON SAN FRANCISCO LONDON

 
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