typewriting, however, were utterly skeptical on the subject until Mr. Van Sant came to a teachers' convention, just like this, and brought with him some of his regular students who wrote by touch for several minutes at the rate of fifty or sixty words a minute. As a result of that demonstration touch typewriting swept all over the country. Since that time I have always thought that the spread of touch typewriting, initiated by that demonstration of Mr. Van Sant's students, is the finest illustration that could be given of the value of conventions such as these. It raised the teaching of typewriting to a new plane, to a scientific plane, and it is impossible to estimate the amount of good that was accomplished in consequence. If the teaching of typewriting had remained in the chaotic and unscientific condition in which it was before the general adoption of touch typewriting in the schools, it is
