Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1889-06-22
ABOUT THE LEFT HAND.
PEOPLE RIGHT HANDED FROM EDu-
CATION AND INHERITANCE.

left Hand-It Is More Acsurate In Its
Movements Than the RigM-DifficuIties
I'm Training Children.
Until of late years the most of the world
has believed tlat it was a serious error to
allow child to use its left hand as much as
its right one. l. was Charles Reade who once
said men were right handed by habit, educa
ton, and perhlps by Inheritance. It is no
more natural to be right handed than left
handed, except that having two hands we get
In the habit of using one of them more than
the other. lnleed, every mother will tell
you how she fought against Willie or johnny
or Jennie being; left handed, not that to have
left handed son or daughter Is a positive
disgrace, but all mechanical appliances and
everything intended for the use of humanity
Is by common consent made right handed.
NEARER THE BEING
Take chilli when it is first able to sit
alone and 1t is neither right nor left handed
Offer it an object and the chances are ten to
one 1t will reach for it with the left hand
Every one has noticed this How it worries
the mother, and how she struggles for months
or until the ch Id has got into the habit of
using the right hand, to prevent it from
being left handed. The left hand is the more
sensitive of the two; it is nearer the child, it
Is nearer its being, its life and action Offer to
shake hands with it and it extends the left.
mot that hand" says the mother, "give
the gentleman the other hand" And after
being directed two or three times it extends
the other, and the mother apologies by saw
mo Sl,. IL = ,1,..
give its left hi nd; that she is sure none of
her people or ler husbands are left handed.
Poor, deluded motherl And then when the
little thing is put up to the table it insists
upon taking is fork in its left hand to eat.
Every child does it, with hardly an exception,
as every mother can testify.
1t is not natur to use either hand: that ia
to say, both hands are certainly made to use.
but until they have been trained both seem
useless appendages. The child will ram its
lists into its mouth, its eyes, or into anything
that is within reach. 1t does not know what
its little hands are for, and it has not the
least idea what to do with them. They are
so many white elephants to it,
10 into factory and watch the operators
How deftly they use their fingers; how accu-
rate every movement. The variation of an
eighth of an inch in movement might cost
them the price of weeks work, so accurate
must they be, and yet they continue, their
fingers flying swiftly day after day without
an error. They are not using the right hand
alone. The left is doing its part. Perhaps
at this mach ne, or at that table, the office
the left hand performs is more important
than that of the right, but it is trained as the
right is trained, in the performance of the
ordinary affairs of life, and 1t is true to its
master
The factory operator was rs awkward at
his work the first day he began at it as III.
child is in its efforts to handle material
things, with le single exception that the op-
orator knew what his hands were for and
they had beer trained to respond to his will
in the ordina y movements. But how long
did it take him to become perfect One year
two years. So can you train the left hand
in the same length of time to perform any
act accurately which can be done with the
right. 1t is well known that persons who
lose the use of the right hand entirely learn
to write more beautifully with the left than
they ever did with the right This is ac-
counted for, as stated at the beginning of this
article, by the fact that the left hand or arm
Is moro sensit We in its nature than the right,
and, therefore, more accurate in precision.
Every perso n has certain things which they
do with thei- left hand and which, from
never having done the same things with the
right, they would be as awkward about, were
they to attempt it, as they are about doing
things with their left hand which they have
trained their right to perform.
Nearly every one holds garment in the
left hand to put it on. Why? Well, they
learned to do it that way because their moth
ers never taught them differently. And in
putting on garment this way-putting the
right arm in irst-the left hand performs all
the work. 1t holds the garment, draws it on
to the right arm, and then, while the right
arm crooks and the hand comes ND and
catches the lapel of the coat the "awkwardn
left hand goes round behind you, catches the
coat, straightens it out, as it were. and pro-
ceeds to search for the place to insert itself,
and, having found it, goes in and actually
puts the coat on. The left hand has done it
all. And now, which hand do you button
withl Nine people out of ten use the left,
and those who use the left cannot button
with the right to save them. They never
learned that way. In guarding against the
use of the left hand that was one thing the
mother forget
The man 81 1oking uses his left hand to hold
his cigar or cigarette He will tell you the
reason he does not use his right is because he
has got in the habit of using the left. The
fingers of the eft hand of nearly every smoker
are yellow w til nicotine He uses the left
hand; it's simply habit. The right hand is
busy with pen or pencil, and the left hand is
trained to pc form this duty, and when it has
once been trained railways performs the task,
whether the right hand is engaged at some
thing else or not
THE PUGILISTS BEST.
Pugilsts use their left hand to protect them
selves from le blows of the adversary, and
probably the hardest blows ever struck In a
prize ring are the ''left handed" ones. LANDED
one with his eft" is almost as much of a chest
nut in the report of fight as "dull thudn Is
in a hanging report.
Delsart, famed for teaching the court chill
dren how to walk, move or sit down, and
whose methods of stage fainting, falling,
walking ETC., are studied by all emotional
actresses, says the left arm and foot are
stronger than the right.
1t is an up leniable fact that left handed
persons, or re ther those who have trained the
left hand instead of the right from infancy,
are much better performers on the piano than
right handed persons. One of the greatest
difficulties to be overcome by piano players
In the renditi ON of classical music is the ac-
curate execu ion of the bass-if it may be SO
called in such connection-and musicians
give two reasons for it: one, that the left
hand 10 yypal from inactivity and tho Ofher