A similar collateral advantage, which will arise from the persevering use of the paraphrastic exercise, deserves a separate consideration.--It will gradually create a capacity to take written notes of a subject, either in the church, the senate, or the lecture room, during the time that the speaker is engaged in delivering it. It is in the ability to hear and concoct in the mind one set of ideas, while writing down an entirely different set, that the whole art of accurate "reporting" consists. The writing part of the process is purely mechanical; the perfection of the art consists chiefly in the command which the reporter acquires over the powers of his mind. The person while so employed has to hear and reiterate the ideas of the speaker as he proceeds; these he must remember and arrange, selecting, abridging, condensing, or abandoning, according to the extent of his manual dexterity in writing. But it is worthy of remark, that if the person be able to think,--to exercise his mind,--and to continue to write without stopping while he does so, the _amount_ of what he writes is a mere accident, and depends, not upon the state of the mind, but upon the mechanical part of the operation, which is aided by the arts of stenography and abbreviation. This mental capacity is most likely to be acquired by the regular and persevering use of the paraphrastic exercise. It will train the pupil to that command over his thoughts, which, with a little practice in this particular mode of applying it, will soon enable him, with perfect self-possession, to hear and to keep up with a speaker, while he continues without a pause, to write down as much of what has been said, as his command of the pen will allow. Without this mental ability, he could not while listening write at all; but when it has been sufficiently acquired, there is no limit to his taking down all that is spoken, except what arises from the imperfection of the mechanical part of the process,--his manual dexterity. All these collateral advantages will accrue to the pupils by the use of this exercise; and this latter one will be greatly promoted in a school by a piece of history, an anecdote, or a paragraph of any kind, which none of the pupils know, being read slowly for only a few minutes, while the whole of the pupils who can write are required to take notes at the time, and to stop and give them in, as soon as the reading is finished.[28]