NEWS AND NOTES

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3649, 9 June 1927, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES

In Lancashire there is a superstition or belief among the miners that if they have a bath it is unwise to wash the back. There is a deep-rooted impression that this would cause weakness.

Interesting experiments have been carried out in connection with children's handwriting in the Wanganui Education district, on which Mr. Lambourne, senior Inspector, recently gave an address. Air. Lambourne mentioned that recently speed, tests had been conducted in some of the schools of the district, and it was interesting to note that boys of all ages wrote faster than girls. English experiments had given the following results: —Boys (7 years), 19 letters per minute: girls of same age, 14; 8 years, 21 and 17 respectively; 9 years, 29 and 25; 10 years, 30 and 33; 11 years, 44 and 40; 12 years, 49 and 47; 14 years, 01 and 54. American figures which had not separated the sexes showed that pupils under seven years could average 20 letters per minute; 7 years, 31 per minute; 8 years, 34 letters. 8 years, 40 letters; 10 years, 00 letters; 11 years, 61 letters; 12 years, 79 letters; 13 years, 84 letters. A satisfactory speed for Standard 5 and 0 pupils, in Inspector Lambournc’s opinion, would be 50 to 00 letters per minute. In regard to naturally lefthanded writers, the inspector added that where those pupils had been compelled to write right-handed, they had invariably begun to stutter. There seemed to be some connection between hand and speech. Mr Lambourne added that there were fewer left-handed girls than boys, and there was also a suspicion that left-handed people were slightly more intelligent than the right-handed.