HAND-WRITING.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 145, 27 March 1872, Page 3

HAND-WRITING.

Writing is a mechanical exercise, the worth of which cannot be over-estimated. It has not received the amount of attention from modern teachers and instructors that its importance requires and demands. T.ie masters and professors in the gym.iasiums or schools of learning among the ancient Greeks and Latins. Egyptians and Hebrews, Phoenicians and Assyrians, and other Oriental nations, gave special prominence to writing in their educational course : and frequently changed their methods and styles, with the view of improvement. The Hebrews. Arabians, and Assyrians wrote from right to left The Phoenicians wrote at one time from right to left, an.l then from left to right, alternately. The Greeks at first adopted the same method, but afterwards, finding it more convenient to write from left to right, this became their permanent practice, in which they have been followed by all European j nations. The Chinese and Japanese write perpendicularly from top to bottom. ' The principle thing to be attended to is legibilit}’. Lord Chesterfield says that every man who has the use of his eyes and his right hand, can write whatever hand he pleases."’ This is hardly true, j Hand-writing indicates character, and corresponds with it : and. however great our "powers of imitation, must always ■ posses more or less strongly marked individual traits. It is no more to be expected or desired that we should write alike than that we should look alike or act alike. But it is true that every oue, with use of eyes and hand, may write well—may write a free, regular, and graceful hand—write legibly, at all events. Every oue may, with a little careful and persevering practice, acquire ability and facility to i form letters clearly, distinctly, symmetri- j callv. and with a uniform slope or angle. Some great men write some villainous j scrawls ; but this circumstance certainly does not add to their greatness : much less does it furnish an excuse for those : who resemble them in nothing, except in | the badness, of their hand-writing. Horace j Greely. an uncommonly talented author I and gifted politician of America, writes j an uncommonly execrable hand, as the i following anecdote will show:—The ■ editor of a Philadelphia paper, having received a copy, in manuscript, of an agricultural address delivered by Mr Greely. thus narrates his experience with

it : u We immediately went to work to decipher the ten pages before us, and with the aid of a inaguifyiug-glass, three dictionaries, several agricultural periodicals, a history of eminent agriculturists, a standard work on chemistry, another on hydraulics, a large street committee, several know-nothings, and our compositor on unintelligible copy, we mastered the first three lines in the first half-day. We were happy within the first hour to ascertain when we had the manuscript right side up —for it looks about as much like writing one way as another. It is now in the hands of a competent committee, to decide in what language it is written, and if it is ascertained that it is neither Hebrew nor Greek, we must infer that it was intended for English, and shall proceed to decipher it.” Especially should those who write for the press be cautious to write a plain, easy-read hand, not sacrificing ornament, economy of space, or anything else to legibility, whatever illustrious examples of a contrary practice may be quoted ; and they will escape, in a great measure at least, from the mortification of seeing their articles misprinted.