The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1895-10-03
REFORM IN PENMANSHiP.
Cairography shows a ;Jarked Improve
ment in Recent Years.

III htCSul ltaies
Probably all who have had a COM
mon school education remember vivid
~ the agonies they suffered during
the half hour day devoted TO max
ing pot hooks and copying unmeaning
phrases in their writing books The
same number of unfortunates realize
with equal vividness how widely diff
ferent their own present chirography
is from the flowing copy plate which
they tried to initiate, with more or
less success, in their youthful days.
The penmanship of the world has al
ways been far short of the ideal copy
book standard, but since the general
introduction of the typewriting ma
chine it has grown from bad TO worse.
The part of the community who have
university educations are worse off in
this regard than the common school
graduates, for the reason that if they
ever did write a halfway decent hand
as the result of their teachers strenu-
Gus efforts, it was completely ruined
when they began to take notes OF
lectures at college.
The world moves and now the edu-
cational experts are arriving at the
conclusion that the whole system of
instruction in writing is wrong; that
the beautiful and elaborate curlycues
and intricate shading of the old copy
plate system are not only useless and
difficult to acquire. but that in the
generality of cases, they are really UNI
readable. Every one has received more
or less letters written by some So
called frSt-class penman which are
beautiful to look at in the regularity of
their strokes and curves, but extreme
~ hard to read. The school-teachers
have come to realizing sense of a fact
| that the first purpose of handwriting
IS to be legible and not artistically
beautiful, and that the some amount
of time formerly spent in ella borating
| shading and curves, II spent in prac-
ticing the modern perpendicular hand,
will give -four times better results in
the way OF a mastery of the art, great
err freedom in writing and the acquisi-
ton of a style which will be legible,
even if it departs from regularity.
The same gradual transition has
taken place iii the art of lettering as
practlced by draughtsmen. Twenty
years ago draughtsmen and engineers
learned elaborate lettering, the rustic
style, the old English and many 9TH
ers, and many weary hours were spent
in the draughting-room putting these
varied hieroglyphics on the drawings.
The doctrine that simplicity and util-
ity are the honest form of beauty has
made Roadway among the draughts-
men, as elsewhere. The first reform
was in the substitution of plain block
lettering of the old style. The making
of block lettering. however, is slow
task and much valuable time was
wasted. The next reform was the in
schrift, which IS a species of freehand
work done with special pen, which
shades broadly and almost automatic
ally. The 'rundschrift' may be put
on drawing with great rapidly. but
it requires considerable skill to do it
well, and the result of poor or mediocre
work is painful to the eye.
The whole subject of lettering has
| now become lost art The draughts-
and break his back at anything of the
kind. He buys a box of assorted print
ed letters on paper or cloth, with we'll
gummed backs, and when his drawing
is done liclls the backs Of sufficient
number of these letters and atiiXes
them to the drawing after the manner
of the humble postage stamp.-S. Y.
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