Evening star., 1933-10-31
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

is at least 5000 years old-very little
has been achieved. especially In COM
parison with the ideal
Even In matter so comparatively
small as handwriting, few persons seem
willing. to stop and think of the one
to whom they are writing. Seldom
does one with pen in hand think to
himself, Now I must make every stroke
properly in order that he will have no
difficulty in making me out"
| Persons who habitually receive scrawls
soon come to jump to the same con-
clusions as the writer. If all cross
bars are omitted, if "u' looks like "v"
invariably and "r" more like "v" than
itself, the recipient comes to recognize
what was intended
| Comparative strangers, however, have
no such advantage. They must strug-
formed and letters not formed at all.
Seldom does the penman ever seem to
have given the receiver a thought.
| II
The element OF time, too, has much
to do with the poor handwriting seen
on every side.
Time does many inimical things to
us, but this one must never be over
looked, that it permits our handwriting
to sag with the years, to take on
| bowed spines, as it were, and dropping
| heads.
This sagging often takes place at a
comparatively early age, as years go.
That is, ones precious penmanship does
not deteriorate endlessly, but begins to
lessen in effectiveness as the child
grows older.
Hurry, carelessness, Indifference
these take their toll, but along with
them occurs this pernicious aging Of
the handwriting, visible physical "let-
down."
Good handwriting need not be metic-
ulous handwriting; above all, 1t must
| not be 50 perfect that it is colorless in
the human sense. No matter what one
may think Of the claims of experts to
be able to read character from a scrap
OF handwriting. there is no gainsaying
that the hands are humanity,S most
versatile instruments. that through
their use the brain emerged, that hand
and mind work together.
A certain amount Of deviation from
copybook perfection, therefore, not
| only Is permissible but necessary, if
such a thing as really characteristic
penmanship Is to come into being
This final and permanent penmanship
Is growth, with will power shown in
the resistance to the deteriorating ef-
fects previously enumerated. There is no
better way to trace the development of
handwriting in ones own case than
to write ones signature and the month
and the year Of acquisition in every new
book added to the home library.
X X
Such writing should be made in that
! good cross between too much formality
and too little. If one were sitting down
to write formal letter In ones own
handwriting to the President, for In
stance, the chances are that one would
be very careful in his formation Of every
last dot. perhaps too careful.
Such painful penmanShip would not
be natural. and one can but wonder
what a handwriting expert would do
with 1t. But these signatures placed in
ones own books over the years. they
plainly show the evolution of a style"
| in handwriting, and undoubtedly best
mirror the man. because they perhaps
best exemplify the happy medium be-
tween too precise and too lax penman-
ship.
What the average person can do is to
stop every now and then and look
calmly at his own handwriting as IL he
were receiving 1t from another. He will
be surprised how carelessly he forms
| his letters and combinations, and out
Of that insight he may determine to
write more legibly. 1t will help him il
ne keeps IN mind that he is doing
something which no machine can do for
him, even in a mechanical age