546 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



longer lines, and finds also that they facilitate a rhythmical regularity 

 of eye-movement, both being conditions which contribute to speed 

 and ease of reading. His tests showed that such lines (a little longer 

 than newspaper lines) were read at greater speed and with shorter 

 pauses than lines of twice the length. 



Dearborn argues, and correctly I think, in favor of uniformity in 

 the length of lines, particularly in books for children. The reader 

 drops quickly into a habit of making a regular number of movements 

 and pauses per line, for a given passage, and broken lines confuse and 

 prevent the formation of such habits. However, a slight indentation 

 every other line may, he thinks, be of distinct advantage. 



Dearborn thinks that a line of 75-85 millimeters combines a good 

 many advantages, and we are certainly safe in putting 90 millimeters 

 as a maximum, with a preference for lines of 60 to 80 millimeters. 



The smaller books which can be easily held in the hand during 

 the reading are to be preferred, and on the whole have grown in 

 popular favor. The larger books usually have to lie on a support, 

 which exposes the letters at an angle, greatly lessening their legibility 

 and producing the equivalent of a material decrease in the size of type. 

 As to the forms of particular letters, many changes are cryingly 

 needed. However, further investigation is needed before we are war- 

 ranted in requiring changes of the printer. We know that such letters 

 as t, z, o, s, e, c, i, are comparatively illegible. C, e, and o are often 

 confused with each other, and i with 1, h with k, etc. This confusion 

 can be avoided by making certain changes in these letters, and their 

 legibility can be increased. Certain excellent recommendations of 

 changes in particular letters have been made by Javal, Cohn, Sanford, 

 and others. 



However, there are many things to be considered in making such 

 changes, and further thorough and mature investigation is needed 

 before any letter is permanently changed. The whole matter should 

 be placed in the hands of a competent specialist or committee of spe- 

 cialists, to be worked over experimentally and advised upon in the 

 light of the psychology of reading, the history of typography, esthetic 

 considerations, the convenience of printing, and the lessons of experi- 

 ence generally. Changes should not be made on the single basis of 

 experiments upon the comparative legibility of isolated letter-forms. 

 A letter whose legibility in isolation is bad may sometimes contribute 

 most to the legibility of the total word-form. Studies now being 

 made of the comparative legibility of letters as seen in context will- 

 doubtless throw light on this point. The subject is too complex to 

 permit the adoption of recommendations that are based on study, how- 

 ever careful, of any single aspect, or on anything that does not include 

 a careful study of all the factors. It is high time, however, that there 



