In December, 1925, Ernst F. Detterer published a brief article in the Chicago Schools Journal, in which he attacked modern cursive penmanship in general, and the Palmer Method in particular. Here is A. N. Palmer’s courteous reply. (This is a careful transcription of the original letter.)
NEW YORK – Dec. 29, 1925.
Mr. Ernest F. Detterer,
Department of Printing Arts,
Art Institute,
Chicago, Ill.
Dear Sir,
I have just read with interest and admiration your note on Manuscript Writing in the December issue of the Chicago Schools Journal. I think that your argument that the manuscript writing, so called, is particularly appropriate to formal printing in connection with art designs, and presumably for the use of architects, is well taken.
In the final analysis we must go to business offices to ascertain what kind of writing can best be made use of in the rush incident to making office records. Answers to various questionnaires that I have sent out from time to time to the business men of Los Angeles, Cal., Chicago, New York City and other places, indicate in their trend, that business offices must have a small type of handwriting to fit the spaces designed for the various bookkeeping entries and records. This writing for business offices must be done with medium, not coarse pointed pens.
I believe that in your illustration, page 130 of the Chicago Schools Journal, you will find by careful investigation that business men and particularly tellers in banks, can read more quickly the Palmer Method type that you give than the one immediately below. In your illustration the letters drawn over Palmer Method types force a slow drawing movement rather than encourage easy rhythmic movement.
I had intended only to compliment your very interesting article, and here I am discussing it.
Let us look at the line under f showing the styles of D, G, L and S. Under actual test you would find that the angular connections in the D require so much slowing of the movement where the angles occur that more time is required to make this letter than to make the style of D in which there are no angular connections. My style of D lends itself readily to rhythmic movement and to the development of commercial speed, while the style of D you show cannot possibly be made with an easy movement or at a speed approaching commercial demands. The same is true of capitals G and L.
There are certain scientific principles which relate specifically to physiological conditions in movement development and application, which must be observed if we develop a style of writing that will meet the demands of business offices. One of these principles is related, to the use of the large tireless muscles of the arm in contradistinction to the extending and contracting action of the fingers, which brings into use the finer muscles which tire easily.
One of the scientific principles of movement application in commercial handwriting is that there should always be a motion preceding the contact of the pen to the paper and that the pen should leave the paper while still in motion. Thus in making the Palmer Method capital L the pen touches the paper when moving swiftly, leaves the paper while still in motion and is carried over to the next letter without any checking of the motion. This accelerates speed and encourages a muscular movement in learning, trending toward a style embodying legibility, rapidity, ease and endurance.
I am going to send you as soon as published a January issue of The American Penman, in which you will find an article which touches upon vertical and so called manuscript writing. In this article is printed a letter from an English educator in which he gives the interesting information that the script system of handwriting is on the wane in England. I have also printed his small and capital letter alphabets in the cursive style which is now used largely in England and required by the English Civil Service system.
I am glad to note the widespread discussion of different types of handwriting. For many years we had copy books, in which the letters in the lines at the tops of the pages were made mathematically perfect thru originals which were carefully pencilled and a process of hand engraving. In these copy books were forms of script letters, which in no way resembled the natural writing of the penmen who originally pencilled them. In the circumscribed spaces below the copies in the copy books we formed letters well, because we were encouraged to draw them slowly, but our real writing outside of copy book practice was an atrocious scrawl, because there had been no development of a writing movement that was in any way adapted to speedy, continuous writing. The vertical came as a protest to copy book results, and it came to this country after it had been tried and was on the wane in England and Germany, just as the print writing is coming now. The vertical fell of its own weight, because in forcing pupils into unhealthful posture and in slowing down the process of writing, it was even worse than the old 52 degree copy book style.
My reactions on the subject of practical handwriting may, from your viewpoint, be biased, since I never learned practical penmanship in a school. My training in the business world’s most approved type of penmanship was during two years’ service in a business office. This was after I had been thru the copy book grind, and under a teacher of chirographic gimcracks had learned to flourish birds and beasts of unknown origin and habitat, as well as very large flourished and shaded capital letters with whole arm movement. In a word, my viewpoint on handwriting is not academic.
I am sending you with my compliments two books which I hope will prove interesting to you. One, Guide to Palmer Method Penmanship, covers our present activities in our crusade for better handwriting in schools, and the other, Palmer’s Penmanship Budget, covers the almost obsolete ornate styles of penmanship, as well as more recent types.
If you come into contact with Mr. Lorado Taft will you please say that Mr. and Mrs. Austin N. Palmer, formerly of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, send holiday greetings thru you?
If you decide to go on further in your investigation of this matter of handwriting in schools and I can be of any service to you, I shall be glad if you will command me.
Sincerely yours,
A. N. Palmer
President.
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