The Educator (Volume 45) - IAMPETH

14
Handwriting Contributes to Business
Talk given at National Association of
iship Teachers and Supei-visors.
Handwriting always has contributed
to business, does now, and probably
always shall. It has not been so
many years ago that we began to hear
from many quarters that handwriting
was losing its importance since the
typewriter had assumed such a prominent
position in both our business
and our social life. Back in other
days, and some of us ai'e old enough
to remember them, every pupil graduating
from a commercial course in
either a public or a private school
was required to write a good hand.
Ability to write a good muscular
movement hand was one of the qualifications
for every commercial teacher.
In fact, some of the other qualifications
were overlooked if the teacher
was a good penman. Today the incoming
commercial teacher, in too
many cases, can not write a legible
hand, and neither can the outgoing
commercial graduate.
This situation is probably due to
several things. There has been a
failure to properly stress in the school
the importance of good handwriting
in the business world, and there has
been a definite loosening up on our
former strict standards. This is due,
I believe, to the fact that so many
communities have put in a program of
handwriting in the grades. The commercial
teachers and the school administrators
have jumped to the conclusion
that since the grades were now
doing the job they no longer needed
to concern themselves with it. Then,
too, many believed the fallacy that
handwriting was becoming a lost art.
If this were not true, why would
we almost always see on business
forms and papers this slogan: "Please
print name and address" ?
In looking back to the days of high
standards, I wish to recall the days
of some seventeen years ago, when I
was head of the commercial department
of the high school in the city of
your President. We had a teacher of
handwriting in the commercial department,
and she could teach penmanship,
if nothing else. Seventy-five
to eighty per cent of all the commercial
pupils secured handwriting certificates,
and those who didn't were
not bad writers. I have looked back
on this experience with the belief
that this was about as ideal a situation
as we could hope for.
Those of us in business education
are constantly listening to the businessman's
lament: "Your product
can't figure, can't spell, and can't
write a legible hand". Judging from
the happenings of the past ten years,
it is doubtful if the businessman is any
too good at figures. A number of
studies seem to prove that pupils spell
By Clyde B. Edgeworth, Supervisor
of Commercial Education.
Baltimore, Md.
Clyde B. Edgeworth
better today than they ever have, but
when we come to legible handwriting,
I am afraid we shall have to admit
that our pupils should be sent out
into business life with much better
handwriting than they now have.
While pen bookkeeping is rapidly being
replaced by machine bookkeeping
except in the smallest offices, and all
business correspondence is typewritten,
there is still a tremendous
amount of pen and pencil work to be
done. This must be legible and rapidly
written. Good handwriting is as
important now as it ever was, and
its importance will not lessen in your
day or mine.
In many cities and towns, entirely
too heavy a burden is placed on the
handwriting supervisor. She is given
too many schools to cover and not
enough assistance to do a thorough
job, so she does the best she can and
keeps her faith in miracles.
If handwriting is not making its
proper contribution to business, just
what can we do about it? To begin
with, we can all try to sell our school
authorities on a good handwriting for
every pupil. We can also try to sell
them the idea of being united in their
demands on the training schools in
training their outgoing teachers as
well in muscular movement writing
as they do in other subjects. Then
the work of the supervisor would be
something entirely different from
what it is now. With every classroom
teacher a good penman and a
good teacher, supervision would not
be as important as at present. The
supervisor could then devote a part
of her time to bringing to her teachers
the latest methods and thought in
the field, she could improve and set
up better grade standai'ds, she could
do the many things necessary to im-
prove the entire work in her field, and
she could keep the school administrators
and the public handwriting conscious.
You have your grade scales and
you make a serious effort to keep
pupils at grade level. The whole picture
changes, however, when the pupil
enters the high school. Here the
teachers are not particularly interested
in the handwriting, as long as
they can read it without too much effort.
Pupils who are not too well
grounded in this skill often slip back.
I contend that a pupil who v^'ites
below his grade level is down in this
subject just the same as he is down
in any subject in which he is below
grade level, and something should be
done about it. In my own situation,
I have advocated for years that a
reservoir class be established in every
junior and senior high school in the
city and that it be conducted after
school the same as any other make-up
subject. I have recommended that a
good penman be selected from the
school—one at least can usually be
found in the commercial department
—
that he be given the necessary training
in scoring and in methods, and
that he be placed in charge of this
class. Fui-ther recommendations have
been made that every teacher in a
school be made acquainted with the
plan and purpose, and that when he
comes across a paper which is not
satisfactory, it be passed to the reservoir
class teacher for scoring.
Pupils below grade level should be
assigned to the reservoir class. Upon
attaining grade level they should be
excused. If they again slip, they
should be reassigned to this class.
This, I believe, would solve the problem
not only for the commercial
pupils but for all pupils. We are not
interested in turning out professional
penmen, but I believe we would do
well to take as our slogan: "Write
at grade level". When our commercial
pupils enter the business life of
the community with good handwriting,
then they are at least making one
real contribution towards the improvement
of that business life, and
we can feel that we are doing our job
just that much better.
Let us hope that the situation never
gets as serious as it was in the case
of Horace Greeley. We are told that
he was a notoriously poor penman and
was unable to read his own writing
once it got cold. Greeley and Mark
Twain were friends and regular correspondents.
It is said that Mark
Twain carried Greeley's letters around
for days unopened. When asked why
he didn't open and read them, he replied
that he loved to think that he
had an unread letter from a very dear
friend.
I thank you.