The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1893-05-15
FROM BAD 70 WORSE.
Handwriting Said to be D~eseneratinS
all the World Over.
THAT is AN EXPERTS OPINION.
The Chirograpby, Of Writers for the
Press IL Growing Worse ON Account
of Hurry and Fstigue-some Faults
In the Methods Of Teaching.

is II true that handwriting is growing
worse and worse all the world over?
This Is the statement Of Mr.. Jackson in
his Theory and Practice Of Hand
writing" Official reports, says the
London News, seem TO confirm Mr..
Jackson's belief. On the other hand,
persons of considerable experience In
reading literary manuscripts and exam
ination papers of the higher orders can
hardly agree with him. As q rule, the
manuscripts of novels and of examina-
ton papers are legible and even rather
pleasing. The exceptions are scarcely
four per cent. in examination papers; in
novels an author foolishly sends in a
mere rough draft, with erasions and adj
ditions tackled on by pins or waste ends
of postage stamp paper. But these ex-
amples OF handwriting are the work,
except as regards many novels. of
rather highly educated persons. and
they throw no light on the hands of
people far from litcracy.
The letters of servant girls and of
other people without aspirations to cul-
ture are often penned in excellent and
characteristic hands, and, OF the whole,
we do not think that the age writes iii,
as a general rule. Naturally people
awho have to write great quantities of
''copy" for the press or for other pur-
poses find their hands, IL Roman and
fine at first, gradually disappearing In
scrawl due TO fatigue. A number of
popular and prolific authors are suffer
ing from writers cramp," and their
hands must have been degenerating in
the progress of the malady.
To do the work with the minimum of
fatigue is the authors object, and GER
tainly il seems as IL the men and wom-
en- with the most slovenly hands suffer
least from writers crarnp. Mr.. Jack
son. however, thinks that writing is
very bad, that its badness Is due to bad
teaching, promiscuously selected mod
els The prefers examples on the black
board to hcadlines), and, above all, the
error is in sloring as opposed to perpen-
dicular or vertical writing. The nat
ural man, he thinks, sits upright to his
work, and would write perpendicular
ly but for the prevalence of sloping
copies. From these comes the habit OF
sprawling sideways at the desk, and
that habit is bad for the eyes, bad for
the spine, bad for discipline in school
las il facilitates tattling), and finally
bad for the handwriting. The slope
keeps on running down Hill till 1t loses
itself in on indecipherable scrawl.
History proves, Mr.. Jackson thinks,
that all writing was originally vertical.
We do not see Egyptian hieroglyphs on
the slope; they are drawn upright, and
SO are the more elaborate pictures of
the Aztec ''schritt" OF the Mayas of
Eastern island, the Sanskrit hand, the
Phenician witness the Moabitc stone),
the Greek, whether on inscriptions on
stone, on vases, or in writing on papyri;
but not. we think, in the Italic hand
copied from the writing Of Musurus
in the editions of Aldus. The Italic
hand is on a s~lope-ffteen hundred.
Mr.. Jackson says that all writing in
Europe was vertical, upright, till the
age of Elizabeth. The Aldine texts in
Italics seem to us to suggest a doubt on
this point.