Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 44.djvu/101

Rh it, and is forced to wield his pen more swiftly than before. Is it to be wondered at that children, struggling against these two difficulties at once, show poorer penmanship, as a rule, the first year after dropping double-lined paper than at the end of the first year of school life?

Some educators say that vertical writing is a "fad" that will run its race and die like all fads; but there is this important fact

to be noticed, that they never have tried it themselves, and, because it is new, therefore it must be fleeting. Grant them that vertical writing is not more legible, more easily taught, and more rapidly written than sloping writing, all false as false can be, the simple fact that it puts the pupil in a perfect position in regard to the spine and the eyes is bound to win its way into popular favor. Vertical writing has come to stay.

porcupine, which was living fifty years ago in Andalusia and Estremadura, Spain, has wholly disappeared from these produces. The ichneumon, Meloncillo, which was formerly common in many places, has become very rare. The Magot monkey is preserved at Gibraltar with much difficulty by frequent renewing of its blood. The Meloncillo ichneumon was a favorite animal with the Spaniards before the domestic cat was introduced, and is still, according to Señor Regnera, greatly esteemed by the inhabitants of the Sierra Morena.