THE COMBINATIONAL KEYBOARD 315 



One letter must follow the other by a separate consent, however swiftly 

 and unconsciously such steps may seem to be taken. Even for a blind 

 typist, the interior travel of the mind from one part of the keyboard to 

 another is just as active as for a seeing typist ; and it is precisely this in- 

 cessant mental action that demands as much relief as it is possible to secure. 

 The conclusion to be drawn from these psychological considerations is, 

 that when the ef&cient letters of our Language are largely or in part scattered 

 on the outskirts of a keyboard, and, besides being so scattered, are lacking 

 in those combinational relations so largely involved in word-structure, the 

 fingers and eyes not only require to be e;*rtensively in incessant and active 

 operation all over the keyboard, but the mind is to the same degree intensively 

 active and, to a considerable extent, distracted by the merely mechanical 

 process of typing from its intellectual action of thinking about what is to 

 be written. 



Now, it is well known to medical men and oculists that this kind of 

 incessant action is alike physically trying to the eyes and nervously fatiguing 

 to the brain, and, ultimately, to the mind, which is dependent on the freshness 

 of the physical brain for the exercise of its full powers. 



The bearing of these observations is not far to seek. It must be concluded 

 therefrom that a badly arranged keyboard is one that makes the maximum 

 demand on fatigue of brain and effort of mind, whereas a well-arranged 

 keyboard is one which, by centralising the fourteen all-important word-making 

 letters thereby limits, and so minimises, the action of the eyes and mind, 

 and at the same time arranges these letters, together with the remaining 

 twelve letters of the alphabet, in combinations structural to the Language 

 and expected by the laws of mental association. 



The " Combinational " Keyboard has taken the whole body of these 

 manual, linguistic, and psychological considerations into account. 



CRITICAL 



Having now laid bare the linguistic and psychological principles underlying 

 the formulation of a truly scientific and literary keyboard, we may proceed 

 to discuss wherein consist the defects of the keyboard at present in common 

 use. There is a great variety of Typewriters on the market, but in respect 

 of the mechanical disposition of their keyboards there is no dissimilarity. 

 In the majority of machines the keyboard is disposed in four rows or lines 

 of keys, ten or eleven keys on each line, or altogether about 43 keys. The 

 lines rise stepwise one above the other, the uppermost line being reserved 

 for figures and other signs useful chiefly for commercial purposes. The 

 three lower lines are appropriated to the Alphabet and some punctuation 

 signs ; but it is the upper two lines of these three that receive by far the 

 largest complement of letters. Of these three lines, which alone concern 

 our discussion of the keyboard problem, the fingers have a preference for 

 writing on the middle line, the reason of which is clear, its position being 

 such that they can stretch from it with least movement to the next line above 

 or drop to the next line below. It may, therefore, be regarded as the master 

 line of the keyboard, and must be treated with special care on account of its 

 supreme importance in the arrangement of a perfect keyboard. On it the 

 most ef&cient letters must be centralised, and it must, as a whole, receive the 

 fullest distribution of alphabetic power. Consequently, it gets on the 

 "Combinational" a total numerical value of 554, representing a word-making 

 power of more than one-half of the whole Language, as compared with a 

 numerical value of 367 on the "Standard." On the other hand, the upper line 

 of the " Standard " — a line second only in order of importance — has a value 

 of 529 and its lower line of 174 ; so that between the interaction of these two 

 secondary, and, in relation to each other, most distant lines, word-structure 

 to the high value of 703 must be built up out of a total value of 1,070 for 



