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192 ILLUSTRATED WORLD
Education in the University of South Dakota. The length of the ulna-plus (practically
the length of the forearm from point of elbow to first joint of little finger)
is greater in the arm Nature intends to be used, according to Professor Jones.
He detects right-handedness or left-handedness even in young babies by this
measurement.
With this readily obtained anatomical evidence of left-handedness or righthandedness,
as the case may be, we are in a position to talk turkey to the schoolma'ams,
and turkey is the language to use if you wish to teach a teacher something.
The proposition is clear: Given a child with expression centers situated in
the right cerebral hemisphere (that is, a left-handed child), may we safely insist
upon the training of the latent expression centers in the child's left cerebral hemisphere—supposing
latent centers are there ?
The answer is No. Don't try to buck Nature. Let left-handedness alone.
An artist born left-handed was compelled by ignorant teachers to use his right
hand at an early age. As an artist he is right-handed, never painting with his
left. He has unusual artistic sense, which is certainly a heritable characteristic,
but his technique is inferior to his artistic sensibilties. This is the result of the
unnatural transfer to right-handedness. The latent left-brain centers have been
developed to a reasonable degree by education, but the artistic sense must be
over on the neglected right side of that man's cerebrum.
Landseer, the modeller of the lions of
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Has Been the Pitching the famous Nelson monument in London,
Mainstay of the Chicago was luckier. He could and did use his
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left hand. He was famous for his technical
skill. He could work with tremendous rapidity,
and do finished work, too, and he astonished a group of
artists once by simultaneously drawing excellent pictures
with both hands—a stag's head with one hand and a
horse's head with the other. As a painter he was rapid
but sure and deft with the brush. His school teachers
evidently did not suppress the left-handed propensities
of this great genius.
I have particularly inquired into the history of a large
number of patients of the nervous, restless, miserable,
uncontented, neurotic or neurasthenic type, and it has
been a great surprise to find that much more than
four per cent of them were naturally left-handed
but forced to suppress the right cerebral development
and train the right hand to do what Nature
intended the left to do, early in life.
Some educators who have investigated the thing
at great length go so far as to say that artificial
transfer from left-handedness to right-handedness
is likely to render the child an imbecile. This is an
exaggeration, as observation amply shows. But a
forced transfer certainly can do the nervous system
no good. A careful study of the problem from
all angles, and extending over a term of years,
has forced me to the conclusion that the only
safe way is to follow this common sense and reliable
axiom:
Let left-handedness alone!