therefore, are inseparably connected with sloping writing. At this point let us once more sum up: in straight middle position only Vertical Writing can be written, and, vice versa, Vertical Writing only in straight middle position. Sloping writing, on the other hand, can be produced equally well in oblique middle position and in straight and oblique right position. It will now have to be examined which of these positions of the copy-book is hygienically the best, and along with this decision judgment will also be passed as to whether the sloping writing, hitherto customary, is without injury for the school-child, or whether it is in this respect inferior to Vertical Writing. At the outset, then, both the right positions must be struck out of the competition; they are, according to the unanimous verdict of all experts, inseparably connected with dangers to the bodily development of the child, and ought as soon as possible to be most strictly forbidden in our schools.
The Spinal Column suffers in this position of the copy-book a twist to the right and at the same time an arched bend towards the left, and with many children there is developed, as William Meyer and Schenk have proved, from this faulty way of sitting at the writing, permanent spinal curvatures with elevation of the left shoulder. Further, with this posture the two eyes approach unduly near the writing, so that the production of short-sight is favoured. The right eye in particular is injured by greater nearness to the writing, stronger extension of the external muscles and increased internal strain (see Fig. 25, p. 87). It was against the obvious inconveniences inseparably connected with every right-position that Ellinger and Gross opened the fight, and since then in all the strife of opinions not one even among the warmest friends of Sloping Writing has been found capable of defending this way of writing.
The right position having thus disappeared, as completely impracticable, from the sphere of our further deliberations,–it is to be hoped that in the not far distant future it will finally disappear from school teaching also,–we shall now have to occupy ourselves in greater detail with estimating the rival merits of the two ways of writing still left, Perpendicular Writing in straight middle position and Sloping Writing in oblique middle position. That in both positions of the copy-book the downstrokes are directed towards the middle of the breast and stand perpendicular to the edge of the desk has already been proved; the difference therefore lies only in the way the paper is placed under the writing-hand. Since in straight middle position the edges of the copy-book are parallel to those of the desk, the down-strokes will come to stand perpendicularly in the copy-book too; if the page is twisted, then the down-strokes, whose direction is not twisted, receive an
