in producing means for improvement; where think you, would
the busy man find himself were it not for the opportunities open at
every hand enabling him to keep in the whirl?

Inventors, and the value of their respective inventions, are fully
appreciated by those who make use of them, but there has been no
greater gift presented than the one by Mr. Isaac Pitman in 1837,
in the shape of Phonography; he, after a few months of hard labor,
reduced the phonetic characters to a simple form such as any
intelligent and ordinarily educated person might, after a proper
amount of application, use to great advantage. The public were not
long in realizing the benefits to be derived, and each year has
seen a steady growth in the number of shorthand readers and writers,
and to-day finds thousands who are successfully using the little
strokes, some following the original system, and others using the
modifications; _all_, however, agreeing as to the true worth of
shorthand as a time saver.

We who started last Autumn, with the determination to master
Phonography and typewriting, knew in part the advantages to be
gained after the top was reached, but we did not know by actual
experience what breakers were ahead in the accomplishment of the work
before us; for the timid ones this very ignorance proved a great
blessing,--conquering one difficulty at a time, with the greater ones
in the shadow, was not as disheartening as having the future in plain
sight.

The multitude of crooks, circles and dry rules were taken in turn and
left behind, and after reaching half way the journey, and pausing for
a rest and renewal of courage, we began the pleasanter work of writing
and reading connectedly. At the start were simple stories which
seemed at the time almost silly, then came letters and law matter,
and, as the words in the first lessons kept recurring, we began to
appreciate "The Wolf and the Lamb" and various companions of a similar
nature. Slowly but surely the work has been progressing. Time has
fairly flown away and has brought us together to-night for the parting
as a class.

There has been much bitter with the sweet and many clouds with the
sunshine; social pleasures were necessarily given up and numerous
sacrifices made, to say nothing of the keen disappointment brought
home to each as she recognized, despite her greatest efforts, that
the actual work was far behind what her aspirations had been at the
outset. But through all we have be