It will pay you to practice the small a drill a great deal. Try to make a half-dozen or more lines of letters as small and as uniform as the copy. Students should not forget to study the copy constantly and to make frequent comparisons of their work with it. A count of 1, 2, should be used for each small a, and in connecting five letters it is a good plan to count 1–2, 3–4, 5–6, 7–8, 9–10.
Small a in groups of five should be made at the rate of seventy a minute.
LESSON 30
Drill 31
Reckoning small o, one-sixteenth of an inch high, as one space, small g should extend three spaces, or three-sixteenths of an inch below the base line, while the loop of q and abbreviated g should extend two spaces below.
The loop of d extends about two and one-half spaces above the base.
Writing which is good in other respects is often spoiled in the written page because the loops are too long, extending into the lines above and below.
The count for each letter in groups of five should be 1–2, 3–4, 5–6, 7–8, 9–10, and the speed should be: small d, from sixty-five to seventy; g, from sixty to sixty-five; and q, about fifty to the minute.