Elements of stenography Author:John Bennett Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: !Httunit0 of INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. HEORY and practice are so intimately blended in every department of science, that in the entire circle of the Arts, ther... more »e is perhaps not one to be met with, in which, in regard to utility, they are not necessary concomitants : without theory, practice is vague and obscure in its operations; and theory, without the aid of practice, is visionary and wild; and, in effect, frequently resolves itself into absurdity and delusion, like the fabled attempt at washing away the sable hue of the Ethiopian. Practice, indeed, must constitute the origin of every art, but theory, good or bad, will, in some shape or other, attend its progress; and the practice will advance towards, or recede from perfection, in proportion as the theory is more or less just. Thus it is, that theory and practice reciprocally act both as cause and effect, either in the retro- B gression, or in the advancement and consummation of literature and science. These observations apply equally to the art of Short-hand, as to other branches of learning1 and polite education ; but, except in so far as they may form an insulated article in expensive volumes of elaborate research, I have not been able to meet with any treatise, written exclusively with a view of fixing its Elements on general Principles, calculated to restrain error, and consequently, to promote its successful practice. It is true that practical initiatory works on Short-hand usually contain the outline, and most prominent points of the theory, of the art of which they treat, together with some admixture of rudimental strictures, but in a way not sufficiently definite and precise for the express purpose of elementary exposition ; and as they are usually stated in an incidental and cursory manner, they are to be co...« less