'G38 Sir James Grkhton-Broivne [}^'<^J 3, 



included idiots and imbeciles of all classes, some of them of a high 

 type, merely weak-minded children ; but a stricter analysis was made 

 in a recent inquiry conducted by Dr. F. R. W. Taylor of the Darenth 

 Idiot School. He selected the microcephalic, or small-headed idiots, 

 and he divided these again into two groups — the pathological, in whom 

 the small-headedness was due to disease, and the morphological, in 

 whom it was due to arrest of development. There were 18 micro- 

 cephalic idiots, 8 pathological, and 10 morphological. Of the 8 

 pathological, 2 were right-handed, 4 left-handed or ambidextrous, and 

 2 (I presume from paralysis) had no power in either hand. Of the 

 10 morphological idiots, 5 were right-handed and 5 were left-handed 

 or ambidextrous. In idiocy from arrest of development, therefore, 

 left-handedness and ambidexterity reach a proportion as high as 

 50 per cent. The brains of the morphological idiots are, we know, 

 •comparatively simple in conformation, symmetrical in their convolu- 

 tions, and approach to the Simian type, and we have in them the 

 absence to a large degree of that peculiarly human characteristic of 

 right-handedness and an atavistic reversion to what was probably 

 the condition of our very remote animal ancestors. 



Do not let me be misunderstood. I do not suggest that left- 

 handedness or ambidexterity is indicative of mental failure or incom- 

 patible with the highest intellectual power, or even genius. Natural 

 left-handedness is only a transference of power from one side to the 

 •other, and acquired ambidexterity means merely the special training 

 of certain groups of muscles for certain movements. We have had 

 instances of the highest ability and the finest gifts possessed l^y the 

 left-handed. Leonardo da Vinci, that consummate painter, sculptor, 

 architect, musician, was left-handed — not ambidextrous, as has been 

 •affirmed — but if he had attached any special value to this trait or 

 thought it imitable, he would surely have secured its adoption by 

 some of his pupils at Milan, which he did not do. Holbein has been 

 represented as left-handed, but that myth is exploded by the portrait 

 which passed from the Arundel to the Stafford collection, in which 

 he is painted holding the brush in his right hand. But Amico 

 Aspertino was undoubtedly left-handed, and the late Sir Edwin 

 Landseer is said to have painted equally well Avith both hands ; but 

 that accomplishment in his case was not the outcome of any 

 •educational disci])line, but an inherited proclivity, for his brother 

 Charles was markedly left-handed. The late Louis Haghe, an 

 •excellent artist and President of the Society of Painters in Water- 

 colours, was also, I believe, left-handed, but the late Mr. Calder 

 Marshall wrote to me, " I have never known or heard of a left-handed 

 or ambidextrous sculptor, although sculpture is an art in which the 

 •equal use of both hands might a])parently be an ad\antage." 



The higher l)ranclies of art — painting, sculpture, engraving, wood- 

 carving, etc. — are not co-operati\e work, and there is no reason Avhy 

 the ieft-handed man might not in his solitary labours attain to the 



