366 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



closely interrelated guidance of the speech-making function. All three are in 

 closer unity and contiguity than if either were in the opposite side of the skull. 



This furnishes the physiologic reason why all attempts at ambidex- 

 terity are failures, and unwise. 



The chief centers most closely interrelated in writing and thinking are 

 thus demonstrably better harmonized when in one side of the brain. The 

 mechanics of neurology are plainly less difficult than could be achieved by any 

 foolish and unsuccessful ambidexterity. I have never seen anything but bad 

 results from the attempt to train children to use the right hand instead of 

 the left, when there is a decided tendency or habit to be left-handed. More- 

 over the attempt is never successful. The best consequences are poor, and are 

 only awkward mixtures of the two forms, which yield confusions and indecisions 

 during the entire subsequent life. I could cite many instances in proof, some 

 of them most pathetic, in which disease and life-failure resulted. One that 

 plainly illustrated the neurologic troubles was that of a naturally left-handed 

 friend, A. V. P., who by arduous and continuous training during his childhood 

 was compelled to write with his right hand. For all other acts he is left- 

 handed, but he can not use his left hand for writing. Although now past 

 fifty he has always hated any writing, the mere act of doing so, and he can not 

 do any original thinking while writing. He is for this purpose compelled to 

 rely on a stenographer, and then his ideas flow freely and rapidly. If he tries 

 to think, plan, or devise and to write at the same time there is a positive 

 inhibition of thought and he must make sketches, epitomes, several efforts, 

 copyings, etc., in a painful and most unsatisfactory manner. The attempt at 

 ambidexterity has been a lifelong obstacle to him in his professional progress. 

 The ambidexterity of surgeons, artists, etc., is overpraised, exaggerated, and 

 fallacious. It is of course advisable in exceptional callings and actions to 

 cultivate skill in the more awkward hand, but that is a very different matter 

 from ' ambidexterity.' 



All agree that perfect ambidexterity has never existed, despite all train- 

 ing. It is neither possible nor desirable.* Sinistrality is no defect 

 and of no disadvantage. That said to exist in criminals, idiots, etc., 

 like many things 'Lombrosal,' is not true, or it is post lioc, etc. 



It seems that there is an 'Ambidextral Culture Society' in Eng- 

 land which, in default of something to do of use and in accord with 

 nature's indications, wishes to insure that every child at school shall 

 be so drilled in both separate and simultaneous use of the two hands 

 that he shall have the two equally strong, sensitive and skillful. The 

 pitiable victims ! The organization might better call itself the society 

 for nullifying the law of the differentiation of function necessary to all 

 progress, for returning to barbarism in the handicrafts, and for life- 

 long cruelty to the left-handed. 



The essential and clarifying thought of the foregoing explanation 

 is that as the writing act now locates the speech-center, although all 

 other acts may be opposite-handed, so the right-hand sign-language 

 and numbering would necessarily have had the same effect in barbarous 



* See the case of Morse, reported by Wilson; especially his own, and that 

 cited on p. 146. 



