Page:Theory and Practice of Handwriting.djvu/165

Rh oblique position as regards the lower edge of the copy-book and the line.

So it is on the course of the lines that the whole difference (which, however, is not to be underestimated) of the two positions of the copy-book rests, and a contest has for years been going on between the defenders and opponents of Sloping Writing with regard to the influence which the direction of the line exercises on the bodily posture of children.

Let us first of all consider the action of the eye in this respect. Berlin and Rembold maintained that for our organ of sight it was of no importance whether the line ran parallel to the edge of the desk, or rose obliquely up from left to right; for though the eye in the course of the writing followed each single down-stroke, yet it did not follow the line. It was an easy matter to prove the contrary. In children at the age of from 8–12 years I found the movement of the eyes in the course of a line to amount on the average to 13°, and movement was hardly ever absent.

This oblique movement of the eyes up from left to right, however simple it may seem to the layman, is–for ophthalmological reasons which cannot be stated in detail here, but are estimated at their full value by all specialists–by no means a matter of indifference for the eye in the long run, having as its result a left inclination of the head with deepening of the position of the left eye. This was very plainly evident in measurements of the posture of the head assumed by children writing in oblique middle position; the left inclination of the head amounted, in the preponderating majority, to about 10°, sometimes even to from 20° to 30°; in straight middle position of the copy-book the posture was far better; William Mayer, who repeated my measurements on the school children of Fürth, has also confirmed this difference.

If now on the one side we have reason, with respect to the eye, to prefer straight middle position and Vertical Writing, on the other it was urged by the friends of Sloping Writing, that the obliquely rising line in oblique middle position was more comfortable for the hand to write than the horizontal one running parallel to the lower edge of the desk. The former could be written by simple turning of the arm round its point of support on the edge of the desk, whereas the latter required a repeated pushing of the arm towards the right in the course of every line. This offended–so Berlin in particular declared against the laws of movement of the hand, and on that ground Perpendicular Writing with its direction of the line was “unphysiological,” that is, contrary to nature.

Let us briefly examine these views. A more frequent movement