Wish Granted

The father didn't know what to do with his obstreperous teen-aged son--until he spotted the poster announcing a new sort of school. The school taught only one subject; it had only one teacher and only one classroom on the seventh floor of a dingy Chicago office building. But that day in 1896, the father entered his son just the same. He wanted the teacher, he said, to give his boy "personal attention."

Irish-born Teacher John Gregg had no alternative but to carry out the father's wishes: the boy happened to be his first and only pupil. Six months later, he was also the first full-fledged graduate--a master of the new Gregg system of shorthand.

In time, there were other graduates, and the school soon outgrew its one classroom. Gregg added courses in bookkeeping, typing, and business English. He started a summer school, correspondence courses, began publishing his own shorthand manuals. By 1912 he had thousands of pupils around the world.

Pupils of his system have ranged from Billy Rose (200 words a minute) to Cuba's General Batista (175-200 words). There were businessmen and bankers, soldiers and statesmen, and legions of just plain Kitty Foyles. Of all the Americans who were to learn shorthand, 90% learned it from Gregg.* By the time he died in 1948, his loops and squiggles had recorded most of the business of the century.

In spite of fame & fortune, Gregg stuck by his Chicago school. He was a bubbly little man who lived for shorthand (he used it in his own personal letters to his graduates) and wanted his school to be the best in the U.S. As the years passed, his curriculum became more & more elaborate. He gave courses in business law, mathematics, and personal grooming. He had 48-week courses for secretaries, a nine-month course for college graduates, a three-year course for court reporters, including such specialities as congressional reporting and three-voice testimony. His only worry about the school was that it might decline after his death. To ensure its survival, he wanted it to become a permanent part of a large university.

Last week John Gregg's fondest wish was fulfilled. Manhattan's McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., which bought the school in 1948, announced that it was turning it over to Northwestern University. There, bearing its founder's name, it will continue to operate, just as John Gregg always wanted it to.

* Nearest rival: the Isaac Pitman system. The Gregg system, based on the scoops and curves of ordinary longhand, flows smoothly along the line; the Pitman system uses straight lines, circles, and detached vowel symbols.

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