June, 1913 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



XV 



EYESIGHT AND TYPOGRAPHY 



THE report of the British Association 

 Committee on the influence of school- 

 books upon eyesight is full of interest. Its 

 value depends chiefly upon the report of 

 the oculist subcommittee, which was com- 

 posed of Messrs. Priestley Smith, H. Eason 

 and N. Bishop Harman. Advice upon the 

 technical and trade aspects of printing was 

 given by competent experts. 



The subcommittee's report is valuable 

 from the immediate point of view of school- 

 books and also from the point of view of the 

 reading of printed matter in general. Con- 

 sidering the enormous importance of read- 

 ing and writing to the general public and 

 the large place they occupy in daily life, 

 it is remarkable that so little attention has 

 hitherto been devoted to the physiological 

 and hvgienic features of the subject. With 

 few exceptions the report recommends the 

 principles advocated by Javal, and the au- 

 thors have, perhaps wisely, refrained from 

 any experimental researches on their own 

 account. The subject is full of complica- 

 tions, physiological and psycological, and 

 the recommendations made are as good as 

 can be expected in the present state of 

 knowledge. 



At the outset of the section of the hy- 

 gienic requirements the right note is struck 

 in emphasizing the fact that the reader 

 recognizes whole words and phrases at a 

 glance. This statement expresses the es- 

 sential difficulty of the scientific investiga- 

 tion and regulation of printing. Too much 

 stress cannot be laid upon the fact that the 

 canons of -risibility of individual letters do 

 not apply directly to the far more complex 

 problem of the legibility of letter groups 

 in words and phrases. It is rightly pointed 

 out that the upper half of a word or letter 

 is usually more important for perception 

 than the lower half. We would emphasize 

 the point more strongly. It is the funda- 

 mental factor in legibility, as is easily 

 proved by reading with the lower half of 

 the line covered by a card. Hence we think 

 that the suggestion made to give more dis- 

 tinctive character to the lower half of a 

 larg-er proportion of letters is unsound. 



The general evolution in the shapes of 

 printed letters has been in the direction of 

 increasing the predominant features of the 

 upper halves, so that more letters extend 

 above the line than below, the extension 

 above the line has increased, while that 

 below has been curtailed, and so on. These 

 tendencies are in favor of legibility and 

 should not in our opinion be tampered with. 

 For the same reason we are astonished at 

 the statement that "uncial Greek may be 

 recommended as being easy to read. The 

 supplement to the report gives two ex- 

 amples, one in twelve-point Porson Greek, 

 the other in uncial Greek on long primer 

 body. 



Owing to the complexity of the correla- 

 tion of the physiological and psychological 

 factors in reading, such details as the best 

 dimensions of letters and spacing, length of 

 lines and their separation, and so on. are 

 at present matters of compromise. The 

 committee does not give any explicit scien- 

 tific reasons for the faith that it has. but the 

 typographical table and the rules laid down 

 are eminently sensible. The small tvpe 

 used in Bible and prayer-books is more than 

 a matter of regret ; we should like to have 

 seen it more severely condemned. The re- 

 marks on the thorny question of atlases are 

 verv good. 



We hope that this report will have a 

 widespread influence. Tt contains much 

 sound advice not only for those who deal 

 in school-books, but for all authors and pub- 

 lishers. 



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