HANDWRITING

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17179, 8 February 1930, Page 5

HANDWRITING

NOT SO GOOD NOW SECONDARY SCHOOLS BLAMED (Special to the Herald.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. Teachers of both primary and secondary schools in Christchurch are quite iu agreement with the remarks passed by members of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce last evening concerning the deterioration in quality of the handwriting, and are of opinion flint more attention should be paid to its teaching. It was stated that the Education Department had recently directed that more attention should be given to this phase of instruction in the primary schools. The handwriting of to-day was not anything like it was years ago, said Mr. A. It. Black, headmaster of Fen(l niton school. It had been allowed to drift during recent years, but an effort was being made by the Education Department to re-establish it. “1 don’t think the same time will lie devoted to it as formerly,” lie added. “It was rather overdone in the old days. They made a fetish of it, but- I agree that some improvement is necessary. One argument that has been used against it is that the use of the typewriter does not call for such copperplate writing as formerly. Then again, the time that has not been spent in teaching handwriting has been given over to the teaching of other subjects more fully.” Mr. Black thought most of the blame should bo laid at the doors of the secondary schools. “They do not seem to worry much about it there,” he said. NO DETERIORATION IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS “I quite agree that there are many applicants for positions who do not write well,” said Dr. Hansen, principal of the Christchurch Technical College. He said provision had been made in the college’s English timetable for special attention to handwriting. The question hud been discussed only this week by the staff. “Personally,” continued Dr. Hansen, “I have no criticism to make of the handwriting from the primary schools. My main concern is with handwriting of the pupils who leave the secondary schools. lam afraid there is a tendency for it to deteriorate in the latter, partly because it is assumed that the pupils do know how to write properly. I realise that good handwriting is essential, and I am out to improve it in this school ns much ns I possibly can. “The writing of shorthand, I think, helps to improve longhand writing, and I think that some of the girls in our commercial class who are studying shorthand will turn out better longhand copy than those who do not. Of course, there lias been a tendency in education to think that mechanical attention to tilings did not count, hut it is essential that accuracy and precision do count. ‘Near enough’ is not ‘good enough.’ ”