Page:Theory and Practice of Handwriting.djvu/110

Educational Bodies have decreed that Vertical Writing be adopted in their Schools, and have also issued directions and instructions for the use of their teachers.

For example, the Imperial and Royal National School Board of Bohemia appends to its decree concerning Vertical Writing the following recommendations to its teachers.

1. Careful attention should be paid to the strict maintenance of the straight middle position of the Book so that the lines of writing run parallel to the edge of the desk.
2. In the initial teaching the lines should be short. For this reason the pages of existing books must be divided by perpendicular strokes into two sections and be written consecutively like separate pages.
3. Copying from subject-matter lying sideways to the left is to be avoided, because otherwise the children would sit between the writing surface and the matter to be copied, and so the Middle position of the former would be lost.
4. Both lower arms must rest two-thirds on the desk, quite symmetrically, so that they meet before the middle of the body and there form a right angle. Both elbows, and therefore also the right, should be at least a handbreadth distant from the trunk.
5. The hand in the act of writing should be placed in such a way that the palm (the inner surface of the hand) is perpendicular to the desk, or only a little inclined to the left. The little finger edge of the palm must not touch the writing surface, the hand must rest on the outer edge of the nail joint of the little finger, which should be slightly bent like the ring finger resting on it, on which again, the middle finger and through it the whole group of the three fingers that guide the pen-holder have to be supported.
6. The pen-holder should be light, thick, not smooth, and suitably long. It should be lightly grasped at a distance of 3 c. m. from the point of the pen, the middle finger should be laid on the holder in such a way that the latter is pressed lightly against the middle of the nail-joint of the middle finger by the thumb lying on the left side. The fore-finger forms a plain curve without any cramping of its joints.