The following story of how McGurrin came to operate the typewriter by "touch" is told in his own words: Corbitt's effort "to take the conceit out of" McGurrin resulted in the development of an operator who was the first to demonstrate that "touch" typewriting was not an unattainable ideal, but could actually be accomplished with a saving of time and labor. This new achievement in typewriter operating immediately attracted wide attention. Theodore C. Rose, Vice-President of the International Convention of Shorthand Writers, at the meeting at
Chicago on September 1, 1881, made the following reference to McGurrin's work: "I would say that in the past week I was in the office of Walsh & Ford, in Grand Rapids, and that a young man in their office, on a test, wrote ninety-seven words on the type-writer, and read the copy. He did not look at the machine, at all, but kept his eye on the copy. I know he wrote ninety-seven words in a minute, because I held the watch." This utterance is also notable because it is probably the first reference to what we now know as the "touch system" contained in the reports of any of the conventions. ==References==