SPEED STUDY XIII
THIRTEENTH LESSON
Building Up a Working Vocabulary.—It will be well for the student to take four or five words illustrating each principle—selecting the most frequently recurring words—and practice these until skill in using the suffixes has been acquired. Each group of words thus mastered will form a nucleus for all words of the same class. This practice should be followed through the remaining lessons of the Manual.
Size of Shorthand Characters.—Nothing perhaps adds so much to speed and ease of execution as a size of notes that is adapted to the individual. In shorthand as much depends upon manual skill as upon mental activity, and the highest achievement depends upon a harmonious, rhythmical cooperation of the two.
It is obvious that all persons cannot write notes of uniform size. It would be as reasonable to set a measure for a stride in walking or running. The characteristics of the individual must therefore be taken into account. But while the size may vary with the individual, the proportion of one character to another should always be maintained. In no other way can accuracy be acquired.
In determining the size of notes there is one bit of advice that cannot lead you astray—don't write large, sprawling notes. Other things being equal, a small note is better than a large one, for the reason that the greater the distance the
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