HANDWRITING DEFECTS

Evening Star, Issue 22382, 4 July 1936, Page 6

HANDWRITING DEFECTS

EFFORTS AT IMPROVEMENT Prizes for handwriting to the value of £9O have been given by Mrs John Galsworthy for competition among pupils and students at London County Council schools. The Education Committee has excluded art schools from the competition, which is to be restricted to children between the ages of 13 and 18 years. They will be required to write a passage from Galsworthy, two scripts may be submitted by each school, and selected candidates will then undergo a test in examination conditions. Mrs Galsworthy has indicated that she does not wish to encourage “ copperplate ” writing, but rather a natural style of “ beauty, legibility, and character.” Of three examples that she submitted, a passage of about 250 words from 1 The Inn of Tranquility have been chosen for the preliminary test. , , , , There has been a good deal or controversy about the defects of modern handwriting, and while there is no wish to return to the florid thick-and-thin style of 20 years or more ago, experts are agreed that- the present general standard of writing is definitely worse Mr R. E. T. Rideout, examiner in handwriting to the London Chamber of Cojlimorce, sees 10,000 scripts ft year from all types of schools, and most of them “ undeniably bad. “Bad bandwriting,” said Mr Rideout, “is an insult to one’s in * e !* 1 ‘ gence,” and he went on to_ talk or the serious loss to commerce which it causes of large stores who keep_ special stairs to decipher the poor writing of their own employees. Among adult candidates who sit for the Chamber of L/Oinmerce handwriting certificate, easily ou per cent, fail; the standard is higher among schoolchildren, of whom 60 to 70 per cent pass. In secondary schools, with their obsession for matriculation, said Mr Rideout, writing is often mere scribbling. “ Teachers seem to be doing nothing about it, and it is high time they did.” , The head master of a London Central school spoke of the crowded curriculum of modern times, which prevents the same attention _ from being given to handwriting as m the days when nothing bu the three R s was taught. * The vogue for script writing is dead, and he thought children are getting hack to a decent cursive hand, with the general standard probably highest in elementary schools.