Page:Theory and Practice of Handwriting.djvu/97

Rh superiority of the Headlines: greater facility being afforded for Educative copies than is possible with narrow books. But in reply can we not make the short copies quite as suggestive as the longer ones are explicit, so as to reduce the difference to an insignificant compass; and secondly, does not the disadvantage peculiar to the long copies of being detrimental to eyesight more than counterbalance any slight benefit such as the one just described?

It is strongly recommended that no Copy Book Headline exceed seven and a half inches in length, and that this size be used alternately with another, of say five or five and a half inches. Such a width would bring the work of the pupil well within the circle of vision that oculists inform us is a healthy limit, their decision of course, on matters pertaining purely to eyesight, being of the utmost value and authority. The narrow books (or short line books) are being rapidly adopted on the Continent, and it may be surmised that it is only a question of time and that not far distant when the very large books will have entirely disappeared. Whether our English Teachers will easily become converts to the New Shape remains to be seen. It is to be hoped that any real advance, however small it may be, will immediately be appropriated by the English profession, although we are proverbially slow to appreciate and still slower to adopt substantial reforms in whatever direction they may be made.

.–Although usually regarded as a minor point of little or no importance the kind of ink that is used in School writing will be found to materially affect the welfare of the classes. Even when good desks and seats, good light, paper, and pens are all given to write with, a thin pale ink proves very distressing especially with young people. What it must be, how much more aggravating, where the desks are not commodious, the light is inferior, the paper thin, and the pens bad we cannot say and would rather not imagine. The consequences under such conditions must be serious. Who does not recall with feelings akin to disgust his futile struggles to produce decent specimens of caligraphy at school when using ink that was best described as sooty