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The Teaching of Shorthand

LESSONS FROM PENMANSHIP

In explanation of the statements I made about the teaching of penmanship and typewriting, I wish first to direct your attention to penmanship. You may remember that at one time penmanship was universally taught by placing before the student a headline which he was to copy. He was supposed to write several lines in a circumscribed space, and probably many of you have seen my friend, Mr. A. N. Palmer, give a very graphic and amusing imitation of how a small boy wrote under those conditions. What was the result? It was that the student painfully copied, or rather drew, the forms in imitation of those in the headline. When he attempted to write without a headline and at any speed, he lost complete control of the forms.

All of that has passed away. The successful teachers of penmanship to-day in America do not use copybooks;