WRITING IN SCHOOLS

Timaru Herald, Volume XC, Issue 13273, 30 April 1907, Page 6

WRITING IN SCHOOLS

OPINIONS OF BUSINESS MEN. A discussion took place at the meeting of the South Canterbury Educational Institute on Saturday on " Hand-writing in Schools." The president said that he had issued invitations to business men to attend the meeting, but owing to Saturday being the busiest day of the week, none had been able to do so." With a view ito obtaining an opinion on tho question from a biuinti.sr point of view, a '' Herald" reporter called on several commercial men in Timaru yesterday, taking with him specimens' of " v-er-/ical "' handwriting as set in Jackson';:', Yere Foster's and Maemillan's copy books, and of the *' medium" style (slight slope) as defined by Vere Foster and Collins. The teachers present at Saturday'smeeting expressed their approval of the Vere Foster system by a vote of sixteen to seven. Mr J. P. Newman, manager of the Canterbury Farmers' Co-operative Association, and chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, when spoken to on the subject, said that he would like to say that lie bad received no.. invitation to be present at the Teachers' Institute on Saturday. The, newspaper reports were the first intimation •hi had received that invitations had bs'on i>ent out. He was sorry he had not known 'of the meeting as handwriting in schools was a question he took, a great deal of interest in, and he would certainly have made an effort to bj present. For his own part, he believed that the "sloping" .system was much the best. lb freer, looked better, and could be written more quickly than the upright, and was in every way the best commercial hand. Nor did the " medium " or slightly sloping hand great ly appeal to hint. Vere Foster's original " sloping " as taught- in the schools before j the introduction of vertical writing, was, I in his estimation, a bjtter style than either j of the. two later ones. I In' reply to a question regarding the style and quality of writing used by hi.v cle;ks. Mr Newman said that most of them wrote very good hands, and he could eafely say that the best writers in the firm's employ used the sloping system. One man, who was a very good writer, was iin I the habit of writing with only a slight slope, but the others wrote with a good slope. , The firm was now giving a good deal of attention to \vriting, and though hs had not yt-i made it- a sine qua non that applicants lor positions in the clerical s.aff should write the sloping hand, he would certainly give the preference to those who wrote' a firm, sloping style. Now that the typewriter had come into such general use, vexy little handwritten correspondence was received, but that little was (mostly in the sloping style, and an occasional upright " letter seemed almost out of place. Upright writing seemed to be a juvenile style, showing neither character nor firmness, whereas a good sloping hand certainly posiiijsed both these qualities. As'an illustration of this, Mr Newman placed a letter, well-written in the upright style, and a busine:.i3 ktter written ir. \hj sloping hand of onj of his clerks, side by side, and the qualities of tho two styles wers well contrasted, the firmness and character of the sloping hand being very much greater than in the upright, in addition to which thai " sloping" hand was quite as legible and certainly more pleasing to the eye. Mr H. Eaton, manager for Messrs Dalgety and Co., said he found that boys entering the office- from the schools wrote badly—very badiy. He did not know whether the upright .system was in any way to blame for this, but there, was certainly something wrong with the teaching of writing in schools. He did not think there was much to be said in favour of either one of the two systems, as against liu- other; both were good and useful stvlen for biLsir.es-. The underlying c-vil seemed to him to be that writing was not properly taught in schools. As far as he coulcl learn, the writing lesson consisted of giving the pupils a copy with instructions to write exactly like it. As a consequence of this boys going into a business office endeavoured to. write " copper plate." They knew nothing of the principles underlyuig good writing, neatness, legibility, and speed. What was required was that thildren should be taught, how to hold iheir pens correctly, to write wiili the fing:i>, or from the wrist, elbow or shoulder, lh-rs, with a good knowledge of the principles ot writing, a boy would be able to write well, from a commercial point of view, whether he adopted the upright or .sloping system He had himself attained a very good style, and ho km w of many others who had also done so, by studying and using Ga.~k<H's sloping sys! m as given in hi? " Compendium." a jmail pamphlet published nearly twenty years ago. Tliic s-vsteip wiis oil" of :-elf-inr!ruction, I originating in Aim.lie i. ard students of i: owui tli-ir success, he thought, to tl* j

fact that it commenced by teaching "the principles of writing," as ility were called by the author. x'lie maima- of holding ilia pan was first taught, and the whole alphabet was constructed of live " principal" elements into which every letter could bs analysed. When boys left the schools now they could not write a " commercial hand.'' Their written application:; appeared to be very fair sauipies of hanuwri.ing. but thsy had evidently been writtan laboriously. A very diiiereut etyie was ui.ed by lie boy when he commenced work, instead oi good writing, very bad was seen. No timu could l>4 given of ooursa to teaching writing in the offices the six or Sivea years at -tho primary; school were supposed to have done that — bat a poor wm-ir would soon begin to imitate a good one, and before long would acquire a useful commercial hand. Handwriting was not the only difficulty with boyii commencing work —their figures were •quite us bad, often. ;;o bad as to make oiio uncertain what they were; jneaafc , Mr 31. Whits, manager of the JN T ew Zealand Loan and Mercantile -Agency Company, when" asked his opinion on the' writing of boys commencing work in his oflioe, said that the writing was indeed bad. Wilting 'was. a' subject which received far too little attention in the schools; j boys did not learn to write well when there. There was one 'Ayls oi writing worse than that' of the primary schools, and that- was the style of the boys coming from High Schools.' Their writing, he believed, grew worse as they;-rose higher in their studies. He had told -Mr Hogben so years ago, thereby, incurring his displeasure,, but it was a fact. Writing should receive more attention, and a good commercial hand should ba taught. He had no strong objections against vertical writing, but he preferred the sloping ttvls. Mr W. R. McLaren, manager for the National Mortgage and Agency Company, said that he had not found the writing of' boys coming from the schools markedly poor, nor did he think that the: sloping style possessed qualities superior to the. upright for commercial purpos?s. Mr J. Williams, one of the mail sorters at the Timaru Post Office, whose work naturally brings him into . contact with almost every style of handwriting, when asked which of- tfe®. -two styles he preferred, said .that the. , upright system was certainly' better " suited to, the mail-sorter. In sorting, letters are held in the left hand with the address running upwards from the left thumb, and addresses in the upright style are very nearly in line with the line of vision'. Sloping _ writing, 'was not so legible when held in this position, and so the mail-sorters preferred the upright style. The best style from the sorters point of view would be one with a backward slope. Mr Dommctt-, officer in charge of the instrument room at the limaru Telegraph Office, not only prefers a sloping style himself, but states that the Telegraph Department encourages the use of a good sloping hand by operators. Members of the public who are accustomed to receive telegrams will admit that the messages are invariably legibly written. They have to be' rapidly written: '' sometimes at the rata of 30 or 40 words per minute—and a man cannot, do that with an upright hand,'' says Mr Dommett. Mr Dommeti showed our reporter a number of lithographed specimens of penmanship, in styles which had been approved by the head of the Department, and were lithographed- and printed as example for officers—and thesa. were nil in sloping styles. Another - point about them is one than was insisted upon by the late W. E. Gladstone when ho becamn Chancellor of the Exchequer, viz., that the use of downstrokes thicker; than ; up-strokes shovld be discontinued. ! These examples, whether written with 'a fine 'or a pen, show equal thieknees in up-strokes and down.