Salutatory

By Miss Jessie Ferris.

To the Class of ’89.

On behalf of my classmates, Gentlemen of the Committee, and friends, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you here this evening, and we sincerely hope that in the following short account of our progress during the eight past months, both in shorthand and typewriting classes, you may share, to some extent, our satisfaction.

I shall not attempt to portray our initial struggles with the dots and lines, but rather dwell on the time when, at the rate of a word in five minutes, we could, with the confidence of beginners, write the short but expressive sentences:

The cow eats grass! See the dog run!

From this time under the able guidance of our teachers, we steadily progressed, until our efforts have culminated in the success gratifying to ourselves, our teachers, and our many friends.

In typewriting our progress has been as encouraging as in Phonography. From slowly picking out the words: “William Jex quickly caught five dozen Republicans,” a sentence which not only exhausted all the letters of the alphabet, but in our attempts to decipher which, after writing, exhausted our ingenuity as well, we passed to the time when legal documents and business letters could be run off with an ease which at the beginning seemed almost impossible.

Let us pause a moment to consider the advantages of these two arts: first and chiefly, they afford us the means of gaining a livelihood in a way more agreeable than many others; secondly, in the taking of notes of lectures upon various arts and sciences we become acquainted with these subjects to an extent which would otherwise require much special study.

How then can we be otherwise than grateful to those who have placed these advantages within our reach?

To you, Gentlemen of the School Committee and of the Special Committee, are our thanks especially due.

Through your kindness in fulfilling our many calls upon your generosity, you have contributed, in no mean degree, to that end toward which we have so earnestly striven.

You, my classmates, undoubtedly share in the pleasure felt by our teachers and the Committee in having passed so successfully through the work of the past eight months.

Let us reflect for how short a time we have pursued our studies. In what branch of study, pursued for the same length of time, could the results attained compare so favorably as in the study of shorthand?

After to-night, over thirty of us, in the different pursuits of a business life, will make practical use of the knowledge gained during the past Winter. Let us always strive to uphold the reputation already gained by the followers of Isaac Pitman.

It has often been said by superficial observers: “O, yes, any one can write shorthand, but how many stenographers can read what they have written?”

Perhaps there have been grounds for such allegations; but have these ever taken into consideration the multitudes of stenographers all over the world who do successfully read their notes?

Look at the voluminous reports of congressional, political and other speeches, appearing in the daily papers from time to time; to say nothing of the hundreds of folios of evidence daily reported in our courts and accurately transcribed.

Do not these sufficiently refute the assertion?

We feel sure the charge will never be brought against any of our class, to each of whom the writing out of her notes has been made as essential a point as taking down.

In closing, let me again, in the name of the Class of ’89, extend a cordial welcome to you all, and let us trust, when we have passed from the immediate influence of these surroundings, and have entered upon the career for which the studies of the past Winter have been but preparatory, we shall continue to merit your kind approbation.