JAPANESE WRITING 



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Fig. 2. Manner of Fixe Writing. 



illustrate the point. The story is told of Kufus Choate that he wrote 

 three hands ; one which he could read and his clerk could not, one which 

 his clerk could read and he could not, and one which nobody could read. 

 Of a certain well-known Baltimore clergyman it is stated that he could 

 not read his own manuscript twenty-four hours after he had written it. 

 Similar anecdotes might be collected by the hundred. It does not 

 matter whether they are literally true or not; the fact remains that 

 the humorous way in which bad writing is treated shows that the gen- 

 eral public sentiment regards poor writing as a thing to be proud of 

 rather than otherwise. 



Writing is to us a means of communication to be used as econom- 

 ically as possible — the biggest amount of communication with the least 

 expenditure of pen-energy. Of course, from this point of view the 

 best writer is the typewriter, and when typewriters are cheap enough 

 we can expect the school-children to be taught typewriting instead of 

 pen-writing. 



