Bedford inquirer. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1857-1884, 1865-11-10
For the Inquirer.
SCHOOL REFORM, No. 8.
BAD PENMANsHIP.

We are generation of bad penmen. For
merly the ability to write beautiful hand
was earnestly striven for and highly priced.
Now such an accomplishment is rarely foun d.
Lawyers, doctors, preachers and teachers
write hand that is remarkable only for its
irregularity and ugliness, and think it quite
good enough. The days of beautiful pen
manship seem to have passed away Such a
thing is not expected now, and many men
seem to take pride in their wretched chirog-
raphy.
Very few pupils learn to write well in the
common schools. Hardly one in twenty
learns to write what may be called good
hand have not found ten in the county
who can write beautiful hand This is de-
plorable, but it is fact. The branch is gen.
orally neglected. Instruction in it is general
ly failure. The chief reasons for this un-
fortunate condition of things are in my judg-
ment, the following:-
l. The materials used by the pupils are OF
the most wretched kind. Paper of the thin
nest, roughest, snd cheapest quality; pens OF
the commonest and cheapest make, and ink
that is not fit to write with at all; these are
the materials with which the boys and girls
are expected to write. The best penman
could hardly write legible hand with the
same materials, and yet parents wonder and
grnmble that their children do not write
better.
2. The copies are nearly all written by the
teacher, and the teachers are nearly all unable
to write copy that is a model fit for a child
to initiate. Hence it follows that nearly all
our pupils are initiating models which even If
perfectly initiated would only make bad PEN
men of them. We are aware that many of
onr teachers will think thcse STRONG ussoI tons
but we have considered our words and mean
what we say. About thirty teachers in the
county are marked !, or within fraction of
in penmanship, and these are all who can
write suitable model for pupil to initiate.
The others are helping to rear up genera
tion of Indifferent penmen; and they can do
nothing else while they write Indifferent cop
les for their pupils to initiate.
3. The same teacher never teaches a school
two terms in succession, nor do any two teach
ers write alike. Hence the style of writing
by one teacher is broken up and altered by
the next. This goes on year after year. Pu-
pills have different model TO initiate every
year, and consequently never form any set
tied style of writing, nor learn to initiate any
mode well. It follows therefore that even
with good materials and with teachers all
able to write suitable models, we should still
fail to make good penmen. No Que who tries
new style of writing every year win be like
ly to form fixed and beautiful hand howev-
er excellent in itself each Of these styles
may be.
The remedy for all this is simple, cheap,
and effectual. The idea that teachers should
write the copies has long since been proved err
roneous by the most thorough tests that expert
ence can apply. They should not write the
copies. On the contrary some system Of
penmanship should be adopted, and copy
books with engraved copies should be used
The models in these are perfect, and they are
carefully graded from the simplest to the
most difficult, to suit all ages and grades nI
pupils, These books arc made of the best Of
paper, and we should thus get rid of the