Page:Theory and Practice of Handwriting.djvu/67

Rh diminishing to small hand for fingers of a larger growth, not only is nature outraged, but the progress of the juveniles is seriously retarded in the elementary stages; and furthermore the mind is demoralised by the repeated but fruitless efforts to attain the unattainable, for the infantile fingers can never succeed in imitating the Copy, and it is not until years after, when a child's fingers have acquired both length and command of the pen, that he is, if indeed ever, able to reproduce with some degree of satisfaction the exceedingly difficult combination of hair lines, tapering curves, and long thick strokes of his elaborate Copy.

But again, such abnormally large-sized writing can only be produced by what is called the whole-arm movement, a movement which is now condemned by the great majority of authorities in Caligraphy, because of the wasteful expenditure of energy which it entails on the writer. And this whole-arm movement is next to impossible and impracticable with young children. Juveniles cannot write in a copy book as they would draw on a blackboard. Anything beyond a finger and thumb movement is to be deprecated with beginners and certainly with pupils at school, as it is a hopeless task to attempt it.

Passing therefore from these, what about the smallest size submitted in Fig. 4, p. 5? It can be successfully urged against this specimen that the size is too small for a child of tender years to appreciate, and that it is vain to expect anything like a bold free style from those who begin with such a diminutive size. A good medium hand is to be preferred to either extreme, and is productive of the best results.

It seems absurd to imagine that children just learning to write can use the pen with such dexterity as to produce even fair imitations of a word like "Permutation" or "Workmanship," and on the other hand such letters as those in the smallest size require such delicacy in their formation that they present almost equal obstacles. A fair medium size where the strokes and curves are bold enough to strike the eye and present an individuality of their own are more easily grasped or apprehended and