228 RIGHTHANDEDNESS. 



above. The mower's scythe must be used in a direction in which the 

 left hand is placed at some disadvantage; but, like the handling of the 

 oar or canoe-paddle, this difficulty is soon overcome. Even the musket 

 or rifle is designed for a right-handed marksman. It is not uncommon 

 to find a left-handed soldier placed on the left of his company when 

 firing. The writer's own experience in drilling as a volunteer was that, 

 after a little practice, he had no difficulty in firing from the right 

 shoulder; but never could acquire an equal facility with his companions 

 in unfixing the bayonet and returning it to its sheath. 



Some cases appear to indicate the hereditary transmission of left- 

 handedness, and on this point further research is very desirable. In 

 my own case a paternal uncle was left-handed. In that of a former 

 pupil, Dr. K. A. Reeve, in whom an original left-handedness has been 

 transmuted into a ready facility with both hands, he informs me that 

 his father was left-handed. Another and more remarkable case has 

 been reported to me of a gentleman in Shropshire, whose father and 

 grandfather were both left-handed. His mother, on noticing an early 

 manifestation of the same tendency in him, employed every means to 

 counteract it. His left hand was bound up or tied behind him so 

 perseveringly, that she only desisted at last under the fear that the left 

 arm had been permanently injured by the constraint to which it had 

 been subjected. Yet all proved in vain. The boy resumed the use of 

 the left hand so soon as restraint was removed; and though learning, 

 like others, to use his right hand in many things, he remains invete- 

 rately left-handed. No doubt other cases of a similar character will be 

 found on inquiry. 



The conclusion I am led to form, as the result of long observation, 

 is, that with a certain number of persons, the preferential use of the 

 right hand is natural and instinctive ; that with a smaller number, an 

 equally strong impulse is felt, prompting to the use of the left hand; 

 but that with the great majority right-handedness is mainly, if not 

 solely, the result of education. If children are watched in the nursery, 

 it will be found that the left hand is offered little less freely than the 

 right. The nurse or mother is constantly transferring the spoon from 

 the left to the right hand ; correcting the defective courtesy of the 

 proffered left hand ; and in all ways superinducing right-handedness as 

 a habit. As soon as the child is old enough to be affected by such 

 influences, the fastening of its clothes, the handling of its knife and 

 fork, and many other objects in daily use, help to confirm the habit 



