594 



SCIENCE. 



[N.S. Vol. XIX. No. 484. 



pelled to work. After planing a board thus 

 held in a vise, he goes to the other end of it 

 in order to sight down it with his left eye. 

 With this eye he is an excellent judge of 

 levels and straight lines. He steps off with 

 the left foot first. The most remarkable 

 thing about this case is that, although the 

 man is a good hunter and ' an excellent shot,' 

 he, from some unexplained reason, puts the 

 butt of the rifle against his right shoulder. 

 But he does not sight with his right eye! He 

 leans his head sufiiciently to bring the left 

 eye in the line of the sights, and with this eye 

 only he takes his aim. He chooses highly 

 crooked or angled gun-stocks because of this 

 necessity. The left-eyed, I suspect, will 

 always be found to have some exceptional 

 habits or vestiges of habits still unconquered 

 by the outnumbering and preponderant right- 

 handed ancestry. 



The third case is that of a man who has 

 been left-handed from infancy in the use of 

 all instruments, knife and fork, billiard cue, 

 gun, hoe, etc. But so much was he trained 

 and forced to use the right hand in childhood 

 and youth in writing with pen and ink that 

 he now habitually writes with that hand, if 

 using pen and ink. If using a pencil, chaUj, 

 etc., he is equally expert with the left and 

 usually prefers it. 



I gather that ambidexterity should be dis- 

 couraged instead of stimulated. If a child 

 prefers lef t-handedness, there will be a greater 

 celerity and unity by means of the location of 

 the three organs dominating action in one 

 side of the brain. 



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 tenclency or habit to be left- 

 handed. Moreover the attempt is never suc- 

 cessful. The best consequences are poor, and 

 are only awkward mixtures of the two forms, 

 which yield confusions and indecisions during 

 the entire subsequent life. The instance of 

 the billiard player of whom_ I have spoken 

 is one. Another and more striking evil re- 

 sult is 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 stenog- 

 rapher, 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 posi- 

 tive 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 pro- 

 fessional progress. The chief centers most 

 closely interrelated in writing and thinking 

 are thus demonstrably better harmonized 

 when in one side of the brain. The me- 

 chanics of neurology are plainly less diffi- 

 cult than could be achieved by any foolish and 

 unsuccessful ambidexterity. 



As to the appearance of left-handed chil- 

 dren of right-handed parents and ancestors, 

 we are, of course, in no scientific stage to ex- 

 plain, any more than we can explain dextro- 

 cardia or other embryologic anomalies. Per- 

 haps, as I have suggested, the location of the 

 speech center in the right side of the brain, 

 by some exceptional condition of development 

 is the ultimate cause both of left-handed- 

 ness and of left-eyedness. The problem of 

 heredity of left-eyedness and right-eyedness 

 would prove a most interesting study by the 

 method of Mendel. Geouge M. Gould. 



Philadelphia, Pa. 



STUDENTS AT GERMAN UNIVERSITIES. 



The following table, as reported by United 

 States Consul Warner, Leipzig, Germany, 

 shows the number of students attending 

 twenty-one German universities during the 

 winter semester, 1903-4, arranged in the order 

 of their numerical importance: 



For the present winter course the total num- 

 ber of matriculated students at the German 

 universities is 37,854, of whom 3,093 are for- 

 eigners, the largest number ever recorded. 

 The number of foreign students is equivalent 

 to 8.2 per cent, of the total number. 



