Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 44.djvu/98

90 there is less distance for the pen to travel in making vertical lines than in making slanting lines. The mathematical fact here enunciated will not be denied nor can the deduction be refuted, and yet I fear many will still deny that upright writing is more rapid than sloping writing.

To the parent as well as the educator the position of the pupil when writing should be of the greatest interest. That there is an alarming increase of spinal curvature and near-sight in children of the present day goes without saying. There must be some reason for it. If we accept the statement of the Vienna commission of



experts appointed to investigate the cause of this increase, we find it charged to the account of sloping writing, with its unavoidable faulty positions. Compare the pictures of two children as actually found in class, and let any one say which child stands the best chance of growing up with a straight spine and unimpaired eyesight if kept in these postures long at a time. Observe that the position of the girl on the right in the first cut is by no means an exaggerated one, but quite as favorable to the advocates of sloping writing as they could ask for, and yet the twisting of the