GOOD HANDWRITING.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1507, 17 January 1901, Page 35

GOOD HANDWRITING.

. Mr H. N. McLeod read -a suggestive paper, entitled ri Giotto’s Circle,” on the acquirement of goc-d handwriting, before the Philosophical Society on Tuesday. He prefaced his remarks by relating rhe well-known story of the perfect circle Giotto drew when asked for proofs or his ability, and which, led. to his securing a lucrative engagement in Horae. Mr McLeod’s note might, be summarised by the statement —that the ability to form a perfect circle (as Giotto did) with pen or pencil is the ability to write well. The same principle, he. argued, underlay high art and good penmanship. Giotto believed that his ability to draw a perfect circle was a sufficient testimonial of his ability. Mr McLeod, for the benefit of those who desired to write well, suggested that as a circle v as the keynote of Giotto’s art, it might also be the keynote of good handwriting I jlegibility is chiefly caused by Singularities. The bias of shaded writing, also, is towards illegibility. His conclusion was that the ‘‘environment” which produced angularities should be replaced by one producing curves. Let the lingers and thumb, used in writing, trace a circle so often that a curve will become the line of least resistance to them. . The simplest way of doing this was rapidly to trace in one soot circles on top of one another. He then submitted a simple mechanical means for attaining this end. The paper provoked much discussion, opinion on the subjectbeing fairly evenly divided.