PENMANSHIP

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 383, 18 November 1932, Page 3

PENMANSHIP

NOW A DYING ART EMPLOYERS MOURN ITS REPLACEMENT BY MACHINES. PARCHMENT USE DECREASING. To an extent which threatens to make a good penman a rarity in tbe future, th'e inereased ,use of typewritiers, helped by the introduction ,of other mechanical devices in ofB.ce equipment, bas lowered the general standard of handwriting, bankers and others employers agreed to-day. They admitted, of course, tliat typewriters and their kin speed up the work to an enormous extent. Commenting on the fact that penmanship is made an important feature of thei commercial examinations conducted hy the Canterbury Ch'amher of Commerce, the business men urged that greater attention be given to handwriting in the sehools. Old legal documents of the pen and quill days, and present-day letters written by men of 70 and more, members of the dying copperplate school, were produced, to support the contention that the general standard of penmanship has declined. "A good writer nowadays is like a cricketer — horn, not made," ohserved a bank manager who was one of the chief mourners of the languishing art. When this man joined the service of his bank, in Australia, typewriters were not in general use, and the handwriting of the staffs was as a rule good. The banker has just received a letter from a client of 81, a memher of the generation preceding the hanker's own. The correspondent still uses the hand that he was taught, a hand that never varies the formation of each letter, producing a beautifully uniform and balanced script. "It has been in the last 15 years that writing has slipped so hadly," declared tbe banker. "Adding machines have aided the obvious cause, the typewriter. The adding machine introduced a system that eliminated a lot of writing, as well as hand figuring." Done hy Machinery. All boolcwork, the ledgers, -and so on, as well as correspondence, used to 'be done hy hand, but mention was made of the latest loose-leaf ledgers, a system in which a lot of the work is done hy machinery. Banks type out their mortgage statements nowadays, whereas in the past they had to be written. The titles oflSce at Perth, for instance, would not accept statements that were not handwritten. It was asserted in one quarter today that the depression was causing employers, seeking to lift the standard of general efficiency in their offices, to pay stricter attention to the penmanship of their employees. Oue bank here, for example, is making +wo of its clerks take a writing course at a commercial college, probahly much against their dignity, but for the ultimate good of their careers. Their employer agreed that if times were good this matter of handwriting would probably not have been trouhled about. In some of the smaller branch offices of at least one bank, writing is still widely used. A branch manager who pens all his letters was mentioned. Often enough, however, a branch manager who is not supplied with a typewriter buys one of his own. In a lawyer's office, a Sun reporter was shown some samples of the work of the old-time "engrossing clerks," the penmen who spent their time writing out all legal documents. The day of the engrossing clerk is gone, but surviving clerks have not forgotten their copperplate — as witness a letter reeently received by one solicitor from a former employee, now 83 years of age, whose writing was a gem of clearness and neatness. Engrossing, once an art in itself, meant careful, unehanging writing of documents, often on parchment, and sometimes of great length. With -it went "texting." Old parchment conveyances of land, probates, and so on, were displayed, the heavy quill-writ-ten German texting standing out boldly here and there among the ordinary writing of the engrossing clerk, used for heading paragraphs, for the actual title of documents, and for similar purposes. These impoptant documents were ahvays done on parchment, so that they would last. Parchment is rarely used in legal offices nowadays. Adoption orders, and statements of admission to the

bar, are sometimes inscribed on parchment. Land transfer titles seen to-day provided" an example of development. There was one of 1883, hand-written, with texting, on parchment; .-there was one of 1907, parchment still, but ■ with much of its contents printed, the gaps filled in with writing; and th'ere was a certificate of title of 1932, stiff paper, partly printed and partly typed. The recent death of Mr. James Goodman brought to an >end something of a tradition with the Supreme Court in Christchurch. Mr. Goodman was a skilled engrosser, and while he was able to do the work, all the indictments of the Supreme Court here were written, on a stiff paper resembling parchment. The indictments most reeently used, however, have been typed, and it is unlikely that they will be anything else but typed for the future.