LEARNING TO WRITE. 797 



is no single system of mecanlque for writing, and that a child belong- 

 ■ ing to the educated classes would be taught much better and more 

 easily if, after being once enabled to make and recognize wi'itten let- 

 ters, it were let alone, and praised or chidden not for its method, but 

 for the result. Let the boy hold his pen as he likes, and make his 

 strokes as he likes, and write at the pace he likes — hurry, of course, 

 being discouraged — but insist strenuously and persistently that his 

 copy shall be legible, shall be clean, and shall approach the good copy 

 set before him, namely, a well-written letter, not a rubbishy text on a 

 single line, written as nobody but a writing-master ever did or will 

 write till the world's end. lie will make a muddle at first, but he will 

 soon make a . passable imitation of his copy, and ultimately develop a 

 characteristic and strong hand, which may be bad or good, but will 

 not be either meaningless, undecided, or illegible. This hand will al- 

 ter, of course, very greatly as he grows older. It may alter at eleven, 

 because it is at that age that the range of the eyes is fixed, and short- 

 sight betrays itself ; and it will alter at seventeen, because then the 

 system of taking notes at lecture, w^hich ruins most hands, will have 

 cramped and temporarily spoiled the writing ; but the character will 

 form itself again, and wdll never be deficient in clearness or decision. 

 The idea that it is to be clear will have stamj^ed itself, and confidence 

 will not have been destroyed by w^orrying little rules about attitude, 

 and angle, and slope, which the very irritation of the pupils ought to 

 convince the teachers are, from some personal j^eculiarity, inapplicable. 

 The lad will write, as he does anything else that he cares to do, as well 

 as he can, and w^ith a certain efficiency and speed. Almost every let- 

 ter he gets will give him some assistance, and the master's remon- 

 strance on his illegibility will be attended to, like any other caution 

 given in the curriculum. As it is, he simply thinks that he does not 

 write well, instead of thinking that not to write well is to fall short in 

 a very useful accomplishment and to be 2)ro tanto a failure. 



We are not quite sure that another process ought not to be gone 

 through, before writing is taught at all. Suppose our boys and girls 

 were taught to read manuscript a little? They are taught to read 

 print, but manuscript is not print, or very like it, and they are left to 

 pick up the power of reading that the best way they can; they never de- 

 vote half an hour a day for six months to manuscript-reading. If they 

 did, it would be easier to them all their lives, and they would learn to 

 believe in legibility as the greatest, or, at any rate, the most useful, qual- 

 ity that writing can disj^lay — an immense improvement, if our experi- 

 ence can be trusted, in the usual youthful ideal on the subject. The 

 business of life, no doubt, soon teaches children to read manuscript ; 

 but many of them never read it easily, and retain through life an un- 

 conquerable aversion to the work, from the fatigue and vexation which 

 it causes them. We have known men so conscious of this defect that 

 they always have important letters read aloud to them ; and others 



