28o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



This commercial view has brought it about that writing is no 

 longer on a level with spelling; bad writing is excusable, but bad 

 spelling never. This careless and frivolous treatment of the art of 

 writing is, I maintain, an ill-bred trait of national character which we 

 should endeavor to correct on the principles followed by the Japanese. 



In Japan writing was regarded as one of the six arts of education. 

 By the six arts were meant the postures, writing, riding, shooting, 

 mathematics and music. The object of these arts was to teach the 

 control of both the body and the mind. By writing, the control of 

 the arm, hand and fingers was to be taught. The Japanese use the 

 " Fude," a peculiar kind of brush made of the soft wool of the white 

 rabbit. Fig. 1 shows the position for large writing. The long roll 

 of paper is held in the left hand ; the characters are written downward. 

 The stone block on which the stick ink is rubbed in water is shown on 

 the table. In the first stage of writing they have to learn to write 

 large letters and characters. When they want to write large characters, 

 it is forbidden to support the arm on the table or anything else. The 

 movement of the arm must be entirely free in both the horizontal and 

 the vertical direction. Not only are quickness and steadiness of 

 movement required, but the arm is trained also to graceful movement 

 and slow adjustments. Now a bold stroke is demanded and then a 

 hesitating touch of the brush is required. It is said that " Sometimes 

 the stroke of the brush must be as rapid and as dreadful as the light- 

 ning in the sky, but sometimes it must be as gentle and as graceful as- 

 the young virgin in her private apartment." 



In the second stage of writing they have to learn to make smaller 

 characters. Here again the arm must be free; but in this case one 

 point of the wrist is supported on the table, or more properly on the 

 row of fingers of the left hand laid on the table (Fig. 2). This point 

 serves as a fulcrum for the movement of the hand and fingers. The 

 object of finer writing is not only to train the fingers, but also to train 

 the eye. So they are sometimes required to write characters not larger 

 than a millimeter square. Even in writing such a small character, 

 every jot and every tittle must be brushed according to a definite form 

 of writing and by a single stroke. 



We must change our American views of writing. In communi- 

 cating by speech a well-bred person tries to avoid mutilations and 

 transformations of language that might be offensive to cultured ears. 

 The New Englander tries to save his g's, the Southerner to keep his 

 r's, the Englishman not to drop his h's. In communication by writing, 

 however, you may insult your correspondent by characters over which 

 he has to puzzle long to derive any meaning; you may flaunt slovenly 

 y's and g's and b's before his face; you may offend his nostrils with 

 the garlic of reversible n's and u's, etc. This is quite wrong. Let, 



