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Hygienic demands upon the teacher with respect to the teaching of Handwriting have already been fully established. The obligation cannot be evaded, for as we have seen in Chapter II. the posture in writing is a matter of the highest importance, and we must add of vital consequence. Moreover it must be understood here at the very outset that we tolerate no compromise with half measures or superficial treatment. The question is too grave to be tampered with, and no honest mind after reading the reports of medical men, who have given this special subject their most earnest attention, can remain indifferent to its claims.

Ever since the incursion of Slope have its followers been trying–but in vain–to find and fix the best posture of the body in the act of writing. Every conceivable attitude, from the extreme right side to an equally extreme left side position, has been in turn tried, advised, and ultimately abandoned, the bewildered experimentalists in despair giving it up and crying out with a last gasp "Sit as you like, everybody to his own fancy. It doesn't matter how you sit." Teachers have indeed been heard to say, (did I say teachers? I will add eminent Educationists have declared, even in print) that "rules for posture in writing are absurd. Every writer should find his own easiest position, hold the pen as he feels best he can, and move or tilt his book to suit his own convenience." This is after all not a bit surprising, for there are no lengths to which "Slopers" will not go to justify the obliquity of their penmanship: and so when "Sit up straight to the right," "Sit up straight to the left," and all the intermediate degrees of twist and erectness have been exhausted to no avail the only