The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-08-15
TYPEWRITING IN SCHOOL
SHOULD CHILDREN BE TAUGHT THE
MACHINE WRITING FIRST.
1t Is Claimed that 1t Is Great Ala to
Them in the Use of Language-They
Like LIT and Take Pains.

Charles H. Burbank, in New York indie
pendent.
Whether instruction in che use of the type
writer should he confined to schools of the
art, with stenography and typewriting, is
a question not yet settled. Indeed, it is by
no means settled that stenography ought
not to be taught to all children perhaps even
before our ordinary cumbrous system of
writing. We can hardly conceive that a
knowledge of biography should be useful
except to those who are to make their liv-
ing by it, for not every house can have a
wire attached but a method of quick writ
ing is useful to everybody. The use of the
needle, everybody now admits, should be
taught in public schools, so that every girl
shall learn to sew; and so the primary use
OF tools, it is now generally acknowledged,
should be taught to boys. 1t enters into all
our best education Every family ex-
pect to have a sewing machine. And it will
be more and more understood that a girl
must understand and be taught how to use
the fixed needle as well as the free needle.
With the typewriter the case is somewhat
different from what it is with the sewing
machine. Like the1atter the typewriter can
be used to make a living with; both type
writer and sewing machine are useful in
every house, the latter for the women of
the family, and the typewriter equally for
both sexes. But the typewriter is useful
not only for its practical use, but as an adj
junct in the general education of children.
The great blot upon our system of edu-
cation is the immense waste of time re-
quired in learning to spell and to write.
Probably not less than two years of every
childs life is wasted in learning to recog-
nize and read words which are not to be
pronounced they are spelled, and then to
spell them and then to write them in a diff
ferent script from that in the reading
books, as well as in a way that differs
from the pronunciation. For scholars not
the brightest the waste is more than TWO
years, and they may never learn. Our Ian
guage has to be learned word by word, like
the Chinese; for we have an arbitrary
Chinese, our language increases the dltn-
Guilty of education because We make the
written page differ utterly from the printed.
Learning to spell and learning to write are
the most disagreeable Wearisome tasks set
before our children at school. They have,
all but the most ambitious, to be driven to
them and their whole education is re-
tarded by this most serious burden of diff
Guilty and revulsion
LIKES THE KEYS.
What a child can do only imperfecty, and
with difficulty with its unframed muscles,
with muscles that ought not yet to be
trained, it is delighted if it can do me-
chanically, automatically and perfectly. A
child hates. to sit down in cramped po-
sition and try laborousy to form a series
of letters after a pattern. But set that
child down before a machine, let it touch
a key on which is the printed letter with
which il is familiar in a book and then let
it see that letter perfectly represented on
child is delighted. He will sit for a half
hour at time and call it play, copying a
lesson. All the child's ambition is excited
to do the work well, and he can do it with
no fatigue of position or of lingering. He
has the satisfaction of doing his work well,
doing it we'll by machine; and his rapid
progress is an added delight. Teachers
who. have had the experience in school of
the use of the typewriter agree in this
testimony and so do parents who are wise
enough to allow the child to learn the ma
chine at home.
The use of the machine insures accuracy.
The child easily sees that his work agrees
with the copy; it is in the same kind of
type. The fascination of the machine at
tracts him to the repeated trials by which
correctness is acquired. He sees that prop
er punctuation and division of words into
SylableS, the right use of capitals and the
right intention of paragraphs are all i'm
portant; and these nicetes of manipulation
Whlch seem relatively unimportant in hand
writing, when all the attention is given to
the formation of letters. come out in their
~
tirely removed from shaping letters and is
given to spelling, punctuation capitaliza-
ton, etc The child takes a pleasure in
Win ga, letter when he can say: This
But, this implies that a child begins to
use the machine when very young-the
younger the better. Children of five or six
learn their letters on the machine: there
is no better way.
AS TO HANDWRITING.
But IL they use the machine they will
not learn to write a beautiful hand. But
how few do The present system tries to
teach copper-plate hand almost always
fails, and those who learn it give it up
when they grow old enough to write with
out thinking how they form the letters. OF
course pains must be taken with learning
to write Well but everything must not be
sacrificed to it, They learn all the faster
for the privilege of doing correct work,
almost from infancy, certainly in the mid
die grades with the machine
All this is not mere theory: if has heen
tested and proved in practice. 1t has been
tried in many schools with good success
me principal OF the State Normal School
at Lock Haven, Penn, says:
1 nave observed that students using the
typewriter make more rapid progress in
ortdhographXI capitalization, punctuation
The superintendent of the Canandaigua
IN. " Free School says, referring to the
Il find them extremely practical and ha
1eve there is nothing to compare with them
for developing good English In tha
copying that is done by scribbling which
makes legible writing by the majority of
pupils illegible, the typewriter would soon
bring new order of things. | have conf
dence, that great future is before it in
school work. - -
The Gloucester (Mass) High School was
the first of tip New England high schools
to adopt the typewriter as part Of it's ree1I-
lar and permanent outfit, Mr. A. w Bach.
eler the principal, says:
I'VE are more firmly convinced than ever
of the utility and high educational value of
the typewriter. Particularly does this an
pear in the line of English work in which
the errors of punctuation, spelling. nara
graphing and construction are rendere5 an
the more glazing and noticeable in the cold
type Of the machine"
These testimonies of experienced teachers
might be indefinitely multiplied. They agree
that the typewriter is an exactfng and nm
sparing monitor and critic, unrelentine in
its warfare on carelessness, and yet stfYnu-
lating even to the careless. In its resent
ment against all incorrectness If renri-
mands for every blunder 1t is not a mere
machine with which a stenographer can
earn living, but in it's use is a most pow
erful and fascinating educator
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