Page:Hill's manual of social and business forms.djvu/31

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RITING is the art of placing thought, by means of written characters, upon any object capable of receiving the same. The origin of this art is completely veiled in obscurity, no history giving authentic account of its first introduction and use. Its first recorded mention is in the Bible, wherein it is said, referring to the preparation of the Ten Commandments by Moses on Mount Sinai, that "The Tables were written on both their sides."

Fifteen hundred years before Christ, Cadmus, the Phœenician, had introduced letters into Greece, being sixteen in number, to which several were afterwards added. It is certain that the Greeks were among the very earliest of the nations of the earth to invent and make use of written characters for the record of ideas, which could be clearly interpreted by succeeding generations; though the invention of the art came from the advancing civilization of man-kind, and had its origin with various nations; at first in the form of hieroglyphics, or picture writing, which characters have, as mankind progressed, been simplified, systematized, and arranged in alphabets, giving us the various alphabetical characters now in use.

Writing and penmanship, though nearly synonymous terms, are quite ifferent in meaning. Writing is the expression of thought by certain characters, and embraces penmanship, spelling, grammar and composition.

ENMANSHIP is the combination of peculiar characters used to represent the record of thought; and having, since its first invention, continued to change its form down to the present time, so it is probable the style of penmanship will continue to change in the future. The great defect existing in the present system of penmanship is the superabundance of surplus marks, that really mean nothing. This fault, along with our defective alphabet, consumes in writing, at present, a great amount of unnecessary time and labor. Thus, in writing the word Though, we make twenty-seven motions, whereas, being but two sounds in the word, we actually require but two simple marks.

That style of writing whereby we use a character to represent each sound, is known as phonography, which system of penmanship enables the penman to write with the rapidity of speech. The phonetic or phonographic system of spelling, wherein each sound is represented by a character, gives us the nearest approach to a perfect alphabet in existence, and is the method of spelling and the style of writing to which we will, beyond question, ultimately attain.

It has been found extremely difficult, however, to suddenly change a style of alphabet in general use in a living language; and the mass of the American and English people will, without doubt, use the present style of penmanship,