FIFTY YEARS OF SHORTHAND.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18015, 6 March 1924, Page 9

FIFTY YEARS OF SHORTHAND.

MR T. M. HEALY AND SIR ISAAC

PITMAN

A delightful tribute to the memory of Sir Isnao Pitman, written in shorthand by Mr T. M. ITealy, GovernorGeneral of the Irish Free State, was read a few weeks ago by Sir Henry Dulce at the annual festival of the Pitman Fellowship, held in London.

Sir Henry, who presided over the gathering, wrote some days ago to Mi Ilealy recalling that in past times they had exchanged communications in shorthand, and saying he knew the members of the Fellowship would valuo very much any communication from him he could make known to them. By return he received the following letier from Mr Hcaly, dated "Vice-regal Lodge, Dublin, January 16th, 1924: "My Bear President,—l hasten to acknowledge your kind letter and to comply with its request. It is a great pleasure to know that you not divorced yourself from the pursuit of shorthand. I have found it for the last fifty years the most useful of any of the poor attainments which I can command. "I look upon the late Sir Isaac Pitman as one of the greatest men of his century. I took part in the little movement which led to his being honoured by Lord Kosebery's Government about 1894 or 1593. I visited him at Bath as far back as 1875, and I always maintained a correspondence with him. "About 1877 I suggested to him the reform of the 'Teacher,' which in those early days was a rather crude schoolbook. He then accepted from_ me many illustrations for the new edition, including the form for the word 'arrive' (downward R and the V halved with the vowel sign for i before it), which up to then lio would, never suuetion. "In a quiet way he was a good friend of Ireland, and when he parted with his copyright to his sons it was with regret I had to reply to him that I could not adopt the last propositions he made for a change in the system. "Our then Archbishop, Dr. Walsh, was another of his admirers, and he felt very much for the disappointment experienced by Sir Isaac in his last years. Although he was possessed with the belief that he would live to be a hundred ye#rs of age (as he wrote me) his end proves for the thousandth time that no amount of human care or abstinence can ward off the dread shears. He was a vegetarian, a nonsmoker, a total abstainer, an anti-vac-einationist, a Swedenborgian, and he invented reading, 'riting,' and reckoning reform, on which he expended vast sums of money for founts of new types and numerals. He would scrap • a whole edition of his books when he made a new improvement in his system —or what lie thought was an improvement. Piracies of his system in America and elsewhere he bore with splendid patience. "Englishmen have many great ones to glory over, but they will search their history deeper than I have sounded oefore they can summon to the altar of public worship a life so pure, so religious, so devoted to the public A\ea , so useful to humanity, as that old friend, Sir Isaac Pitman. I J™ 11 with you in doing honour to his memory."