Here we encounter a singular fact. After a history covering ages, the great improvement in shorthand, which finally perfected the art, was delayed by destiny until the very eve of the invention of the typewriter. Its coming, just at this time, seems, in the light of later events, almost prophetic. For it is obvious that shorthand, even as perfected by phonography, would have been restricted, without the typewriter, to a limited field of usefulness. As a time saver, shorthand is clearly a half measure, and, so long as the art of transcribing notes in long hand could be done only at pen-writing speed, the swiftest shorthand writer could render only a partial time-saving service. In the days before typewriting, it would have required more than one stenographic secretary to free the busy executive from the bondage of the pen. He would have needed a complete retinue of them, to whom he would dictate in rotation, which is exactly what the great Julius Caesar is said to have done. But the Caesars of history are few, and equally few are the notables of the past, in any field of effort, who had the means or the inspiration to provide themselves with a whole battery of stenographers. In this fact we find one outstanding distinction of the typewriter as a labor saver--it perfected the process which shorthand had begun--it completely emancipated the executive. When we talk of "labor saving" we usually think in terms of manual labor. But when the typewriter freed the executive from pen slavery it did more than save mere hand labor. It saved and conserved the very highest quality of brain labor. True, the busy man of affairs works as hard today as he ever did, but the typewriter has made his labor more productive. It has relieved him of the old pen drudgery, so that the greater part of his time may now be devoted to creative tasks. It is common to speak of the higher efficiency of the present-day business man, as though men themselves had grown bigger in our own times. Perhaps they have. But let us not fail to credit a part of this growth to the emancipation achieved through the stenographer and the writing machine.