One of the London papers has been attacking the badness.of modern handwriting. "How many boys," it asks, "realize what bad" handwriting costs their parents?" Anti it goes No fewer than 60 per cent, of the public and secondary schoolboys of 18 years and over who apply for clerkships in the great banks fail inthe handwriting test, the applicant has outstanding qualifications, this may means only lemporary'set-ack—after a few rivetting" at handwriting allowed to. present hima again with every chance of secur his appointment. In the meantime, instead of earning, he has remained 4 charge on his parents, But in many cases the'applicant has too little to offer of other qualities in compensation for the poorness of his writing and he is told to seek elsewhere. The oad to what looked like a most promising job is barred by the condition. "good. handwriting essential," or -by (which means the same thing) "apply in own handwriting." Have, it nae, is another of the inherent deficiencies of the mechanization of oustage. The paper we have been quoting offers a variety of a8 that masters do not atriotly enough insist on pupils writing legibly; or that the intensive methods of modern teaching ruin a boy's handwriting by foreing him to scribble down his notes at breakneck Which we believe to be sheer nonsense, Or, if it is not, there surely much amiss' with educational methods to-day, quite apart from handwriting. The typewriter is really at. the bottom of the whole mischief.
From amongst the mists' of infancy one. recalls glimpses of an office in which, at desks as high as Bob Cratehit's, sat half-a-dozen writing clerks, as they were called in those days, writing from morn till eve, Every letter that went out of that office was written by hand, and might almost have been written by the same hand. One recalls how "the dearest girl in the world," in order to help Traddles in his junior days, cultivated a handwriting that looked "extraordinarily stiff and legal." The point to emphasize is that the "clerkly hand"—a phrase, of course, which originated from something much higher and more scholarly than a writing clerk—was perfectly legible; and there were very few. mistakes. In those days plenty of ladies still wrote "Italian writing," with elbow close to side and pen and hand sloped well to the right. Class: ical writing 20 called, uprigl and rounder, was only just becoming general and was not wholly approved by: the old-fashioned. But in either. style people were as careful of the matter of what. they set down as of the manner. Letter-writing, was still something of an art and style was one of the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.