Freeport High School - Clarion Yearbook (Freeport, ME)

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LITERARY the where. NVords and phrases were represented by arbi- trary signs. ln the phrase, ueven at the right hand of God, the character g represented God , two lines represented even, being of even length, right hand was expressed by the signs for Woven, being placed o11 the right hand side of g. Samuel Pepys penned his tanious Diary in shorthancl. No doubt he did not think that the eharaetcrs would be deciphcred a hundred years later and printed in plain English so that all who would could read. The famous narrative of Charles IPS escape after the battle of lvorcester was taken down by his sec- retary from the dictation ot' his king. Delving into the history of this country we iind nlany leading statesrncn, clergyinen, heads of universities and nien of great learning among the users of shorthand as a personal accomplish- nient. It is reported that Thomas fleliferson, 'llenjaniin Frank- lin, and Elbridge Gerry, three of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, were writers of shorthand. N ea1'ly all of the early Harvard University presidents including Henry Dunster f1640-1654j and the famous Jonathan Edwards, president of Princeton University, were expert writers of shorthand. Many books have been written and published about shorthand, its history and practice. The first known history of shorthand was published in 1736, by Rev. Philip Gibbs and is called An Essay Towards the Eurthcr linprovenicnt of Shorthand. In 1816 there was published the Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of Shorthandn by Jaincs Henry Lewis. Wllhe History of Shorthand Writing was published in England. lin 1884 Mr. Julius Ensign Rockwell prepared for the Hu- reau of Education in Washington a circular entitled The Teaching, Practice, and Literature of Shorthand, and in 1893 he prepared Shorthand Instruction and Practice. Many systems of shorthand have been established in schools and colleges, but the system used in flick of the high schools in the country is the Gregg system. It is written along the line of ordinary longhand, in a natural, easy, flowing manner in which drawing shaded characters play no part. Pitman Shorthand is also used in some schools. Isaac Pitnian Wrote a History of Shorthand, which was originally published in the Phonotypic Journal for 1847. History proves to us that aiknowledgc of a system of abbrevi- 21

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THE OLARIQN 1bietorQ M Ebortbanb The history of shorthand may be traced to the time of Julius Caesar. He had many noble thoughts to record, so he wrote his thoughts in shorthand himself and had one of his stenog- raphers transcribe them later. 'ily ro was a shorthand man and a erackerjaek, too. He was so good at shorthand writing that he was made a Hi-l'C0H12l11H by Cicero and employed to report speeches in the Roman Senate. As the great Caesar ascended the Ii0St1'lllll and addressed the forum on some important busi- ness, Tyro, or some I'I0!lH'lili as they called them, would sit near and with his stylus scratch on wax tablets signs which he after- wards transcribed into Latin. The poet Quintus Ennius had a scheme of abbreviated Writ- ing with eleven hundred signs! .lt was something like the Chinese language. And Uassianus, Bishop of Brescia, is re- ported to have thrust upon his students of shorthand several thousand additional arbitrary signs. This was in 63 B. C., when they had no pencils, ink, or pens. Fountain pens were unheard of. Pans tilled with wax formed the notebooks of the speed writers of llonie, and toriuous implements were the only writing instruments with which to inseribe the wax tablets. In the Middle Ages many who wrote shorthand were burned at the stake because their signs were thought to be wicked. The people thought it was Black Magic. VVhen the great Renaissance of liearning was brought about. shorthand eaine into its own once more. Tymothe Bright, Doc- tor of Physics, was the first to publish a system in modern times. His book, The Art of Short, Swift, and Secret VVrit- ing by Character, appeared in 1588, dedicated to Queen Eliz- abeth. 4'Father of Modern Shorthandn is the title by which he is honored. His shorthand was planned for the reporting of sermons. Metcalfe in 1645 engraved in his textbook the Ten Commandments and a representation of the l,ord's Prayer. Beneath his portrait a poem appeared, testifying to the use to which he intended his system to be put. One had to learn long lists of strokes, curves, straight lines, curlicues, to translate the thought of the orator into symbols which would be re-written in longhand. Signs, related and unrelated, were employed. A circle rep- resented thc globular aspect of the world and a dot to indicate 20

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T HIL' CLA RION ated writing' whieh ean be used on all oeeasions is a time-saver and a personal aeeonipllshment. Mixniox li. LKNIJICIISON, 728. the 1031116 light lf'redl Fredl llihy lookl There7s a light in the old light- house over on the pointf' lVith this ery Beatrice Benson ran upstairs to her hrother's den where he, hearing her ery, was already peering out through the fast gathering darkness. i t'Why, Sis, you niust he erazy, I donlt see any lightf, Mliut Fred, there was. Well inayhe, hut there isn't any 11ow. Why-why there is tool l.ook lv Sure enough there was a hlue light in the old tower over on l'erkin's Point. See, fl told you so hutvhut it's gone now. Nome on, Bee, let's go over and investigate. hllut, Fred, it's awful dark and if Guardie l.ud were here, he eouldnit let us go and you know itf' '4Oh. well, Guardie l.ud isn't here and anyway, we eau ask Chris and Holi, they'd love to gel So Christine Sllllfll, Boh llurnhani, lleatriee, Zllltl Fred Ben- son started ott for the island in Fred's launch. While they are on their way l will tell you a little of their life history. ilieatriee and Fred were hrother and sister. Fred was seven- teen and Hee was lifteen. 'llen years previous their mother had died and two years later their father died leaving them to the eare of his friend Charles Ludingrton whom they ealled Guardie liud. 'llhey lived on the niain land about three iniles from Per- kin's Point on whieh stood the deserted lighthouse where the old keeper had hung hiniself niore than ten years previous. At the present time Mr. l'.uding'ton and his wife were away visiting, leaving the house to the eare of Fred and Hee whose friends, Christine Smith and Robert Burnham, were staying with theni. VVhen they arrived at the island about an hour later there was 7? 22