Penmanship: Teaching and Supervision

by Leta Severance Hiles

Nearsight is frequently brought on by straining the eyes to see objects, and especially small blackboard writing, at a distance. Light shining on the board causes a glare, and when pupils are sitting so that the work on the board is seen at a trying angle the result is harmful to the eye. All work placed on the board during a penmanship demonstration, or at any other time, should be executed large enough and with lines so bold that pupils in the rear of the room may see it plainly without eye strain.

Correct posture while writing precludes a tendency toward curvature of the spine, and also saves the eyes unnecessary strain. Numberless people sit and write more hours than they walk or ride. Who would presume to question the value of correct posture while walking, in its relation to good health? We are painfully inconsistent, when the writing habit is in operation, with regard to many of the laws that make for good health.

Only as we work toward the saving of energy for ourselves and others are we keeping step with the progressives who are teaching conservation from the kitchen to forestry. Surely our aim should be the greatest accomplishment with the least expenditure of energy.

ECONOMY OF TIME A RESULT OF THE SOLUTION

Second only in importance to conserving the health by economizing energy through muscular movement is the time saving element. People who would recoil from ordinary thieving are often guilty of dishonesty of a kind that is closely akin thereto. We joke over our own poor handwriting and moan over that of our friends, yet we would be greatly startled were we actually to compute the number of priceless hours wasted every day by busy people trying to decipher illegible writing. Not only time but temper as well is destroyed. Quite as painful, only less annoying, to the economist of time is the accurately drawn script that we know consumed fully three times as much time as should have been required for its execution.

In many schools we find that the method of executing written lessons is not equal to the need. Then also, we have pupils taking several times as long as should be required for written spelling or composition. Muscular movement will reduce several fold the time necessary for all written work and the benefits will not end there, for better quality in the content will result. The pupil will be left free to dictate and the hand will obey quite unconsciously.

We constantly hear the plea, “We cannot teach writing; we have not the time.” Would it not be well to make some computations at this point? Compare a class or school that uses a good muscular movement, acquired through a formal writing lesson of from twenty to thirty minutes daily, with a class in which penmanship is hit or miss. The latter irregular habit always results in an irregular slant and finger movement. Judge then if it would not be well to teach pupils to save time. We carefully consider how to minimize waste of energy in a machine. Is the human machine of less importance?

Since penmanship is used largely as a vehicle for expression to convey the mental product to others, is it not reasonable that we employ the easiest and speediest method of transportation? It is convenient to be master of a method that can record thought as fast as the mind shapes it. The right method will aid thought, not impede it.

Henry Maxwell, as a workman, began to study the length of time he required to each part of a job. He kept a record and studied it. He then busied himself seeing where he could cut down all unnecessary strokes. He found that on a certain six hour job all but two hours and forty-seven minutes were consumed by bad planning, poor tools, and needless movements. Maxwell, as a master craftsman, is one of the all too rare people who are setting things in order. Everything can be provided more easily as a result of the work of a man like him. He opens up the possibility of leisure through the saving of labor.

Assuming that not more than five or ten minutes were saved by the pupil during each written lesson, think of the total saving per day, per week, per month, not to mention the saving of time to that same man or woman when his school life is over and school of real life begins.