Page:Theory and Practice of Handwriting.djvu/69

Rh pupils against hard downstrokes, the result will then be better work and less labour.

.–What must have often struck the reader as a serious anomaly in the prevailing styles or series of Headlines is the mode of joining the letters of a word together. The general rule has been to join all letters exactly in the middle and this rule necessitates the lifting of the pen at nearly every junction and frequently once or twice in the formation of a single letter. Now it may fairly be argued that, as Continuity in Writing is one of the pre-eminent elements of speed: a system of connection which involves the incessant lifting of the pen must be diametrically opposed to such continuity, and therefore absolutely inimical to a maximum of rapidity. Consequently the principle of joining both parts of letters and whole letters at the top and bottom is now fast superseding the central junction just referred to, and thus Continuity and the highest speed are both attained.

Even as early as the year 1815 a Writer on this subject (G. B. King) says in a note he thus recognised the full value of the principle of Continuity for rapid writing. A wise teacher will not only cultivate this essential by and through the ordinary Copy Book, he will give the more advanced scholars frequent exercise in writing entire lines of words without lifting the pen, save to begin a fresh line. It cannot be too strongly impressed upon our teachers that the laws and rules which determine shape, size, direction and junction of strokes and letters are not fixed and immutable but arbitrary and conventional; that at any rate the caligraphy fantastic and ornate as it certainly was, of a past age must not dictate to us of the present: the exigencies of to-day must modify the writing of yesterday and determine what it is to be.

As an illustration of the pernicious effects of the non-continuous principle I would instance one letter received recently from a high Educational Authority. The address on the envelope consisted of nine words containing altogether forty-nine letters. The pen have been lifted nine times; it was lifted not less