Page:The Girl Who Earns Her Own Living (1909).djvu/26

 stenography slowly and conscientiously, during your last year or two in day school. If it is not taught free in any of your city schools, then see what the Young Women's Christian Association or some working-girl's organization offers you in the way of a night class at reasonable rates. It will take from seven months to one year for you to learn thoroughly a good method of shorthand in this way, but in the end, working slowly but earnestly, you will have absorbed the fundamental principles of what is nothing more nor less than a new language. In fact, Dickens is said to have called shorthand "harder than ten new languages." At Cooper Institute, in New York City, where a generous endowment has established a free course, no pupil is permitted to complete the lessons in less than a year, which would indicate that "get-your-diploma-quick" methods in stenography do not pay.

If you live in a small town, and have not the money to pay your way through a city business college, then learn stenography through some reliable correspondence school. When you feel well-grounded in the rudiments, take a few special lessons for speed. The only assistance you will need for home study consists of a hired machine, and some member of the family to dictate to you.

If you have funds to attend a business col-