obliquely in oblique middle-position. Principal Mock, too, began with Vertical Writing in the first class of his public school, as also some first classes in the ninth district. At Bayr’s request these experimental classes were repeatedly visited during the past school year by the most prominent educationalists of Vienna, as well as by medical authorities, who, according to intelligence received by letter from Bayr, all without exception were convinced of the hygienic superiority of Vertical Writing and have since then for the most part themselves actively led the way in favour of Vertical Writing. For example, on the 9th of April a commission, consisting of the District School Inspector Herr Fellner, Principal George Ernst, and several teachers, inspected Bayr’s schools; in the fifth class the vertically writing children were required to place their copy-book obliquely and to write obliquely: “The children now wrote obliquely, and their fine posture vanished; they sat badly; nothing more was to be seen of a straight bodily posture. But when ordered to place their copy-book straight again and to write vertically, they sat as straight as a rush.” On the 19th of April Prof. Fuchs, the Vienna ophthalmologist, spent two hours in Bayr’s school. In the first vertically writing class he found a model posture and clear writing. In the case of one child the eyes were found to be 32 c. m. distant from the writing. In the other cases no measurement was made, because it was seen that the distance was approximately the same. In the obliquely-writing course of the second school-year Prof. Fuchs found, in spite of the fact that oblique middle-position was enjoined, some children writing with straight right-position. The governess, on being questioned, explained that the children always abandoned the oblique position in spite of admonitions.
“Prof. Fuchs now observed the children who had their copy-book placed in the way required by Berlin and Remboldt. These children sat badly, like the rest.” In the fifth class some wrote vertically, others obliquely…. “Of those who wrote vertically only one out of about twenty sat badly, of the obliquely-writing children the majority…. At his request the children were colectively asked before the writing to sit straight, but only the vertically writing succeeded in this.”… “The following direction was now given to the children: ‘All write as quickly as you possibly can.’… The vertically-writing were ready simultaneously with the obliquely-writing children, and no difference as regards rapidity was apparent.” Prof. Fuchs found that the perpendicular writing was clearer than the oblique. One vertically-writing female pupil attracted his attention by her bad way of sitting; it turned out that the child had only been writing vertically for three days. The results in the other classes
