The Hausam system of plain penmanship, complete

Dedication

THIS BOOK

IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO

MY WIFE

Introduction

HERE are several branches that have acquired the reputation of being the poorest taught sub¬ jects in the public schools, but only writing, among all the required subjects, can lay claim to the distinction of being the most nearly un¬ taught of all. As the field of observation widens, the qualified observer becomes more and more impressed with the deplorable situa¬ tion in which he finds this subject. A large percentage of the teachers are seriously lacking in ability to write well, in technical knowledge of the correct script forms, in a knowledge of the pedagogy of teaching penmanship, and in interest in it. Due to inadequate preparation and in consequent lack of interest, teachers quite gen¬ erally find excuses for neglecting the subject or for dropping it entirely from their already over-burdened programs. That pen¬ manship is practically always sacrificed for another or for other subjects of less importance in the life of the pupil seems never to occur to these teachers.

The penmanship situation in the public schools, as a rule, pre¬ sents some outstanding inconsistencies, not the least of which is that it is universally listed as one of the required subjects and almost nowhere are pupils required to attain a worth while pro¬ ficiency in penmanship to entitle them to promotion or graduation. Many pupils fail in geography, history or arithmetic, but rarely does one fail in penmanship, although for the average pupil pen¬ manship holds, all through life, a value at least not second to any of the subjects mentioned.

A teacher would hardly presume to teach any other subject with the slight fundamental knowledge of the subject that seems sufficient in penmanship. That a teacher can hardly write legibly and does not know the details of form embodied in any accurate letter, seems inconsequential, and in the face of this ignorance they often do not hesitate to offer the excuse for failure that their pupils feel no interest in the subject, take no pains, and make no improvement. Only a very small percentage of public school teachers even profess to be able to write with the arm move¬ ment, without which the execution of practical penmanship is impossible.

The author undertakes to say that he believes he has made a careful examination of the results of average teaching as shown in pupils’ specimens in more cases than has any other professional penmanship teacher, and he does not hesitate to say that if all the subjects of the common school curriculum were as poorly taught as is penmanship, it would be no loss to the average com¬ munity to keep its school closed. The average pupil could do himself more good by possessing a penmanship text containing good copies and some plain instructions than is being done for him in the average school. This is because he gives the text book a place second to the place so ineffectually filled by the teacher, with the result that he never experiences an awakening of interest in the subject and makes no effort of consequence at learning it.

That the average teacher can acquire a skill in writing and a knowledge of the pedagogy of the subject sufficient to secure really compensating results in the school room has been proved repeatedly wherever teachers have been given proper training.

Properly trained teachers always find time for teaching this subject however crowded their programs may be. They find in¬ terest easily aroused and sustained, and their pupils become pos¬ sessed of a lifelong blessing in a good handwriting.

Business men and college professors everywhere deplore the miserable scribbling imposed upon them by clerks and students, and they are right in assuming that the public schools are not doing their duty toward their pupils in graduating them into the activities of life or into college with the questionable distinction that rests upon writing hands that no one can read. It is the purpose of this Manual to help in correcting the conditions re¬ ferred to by placing before teachers in a systematic form the necessary fundamental principles, forms, ideas, methods and plans involved in teaching penmanship successfully.

Emporia, Kansas.

L. H. H.

PART I Page

The Teacher’s Preparation . 13

Writing as a Dual Value Subject. . . 14

The Question of Imitation and Individuality. 15

Permanent Results . 4 . 16

Slant, Height and Spacing in Arm Movement Writing. 18

Left-Handed Writers . 21

Real and Apparent Retrogression. 22

Reserve Power and Scope of Movement. 23

Class Drills . 25

What Determines Good Letter Forms. 26

Grading Pupils’ Specimens . 27

Position. 29

Development of the Motor System . 33

Phases in Learning Penmanship . 34

The Mere Movement Phase.. 35

The Capital Letter Movement Phase . 37

The Small Letter Movement Phase . 39

Some Unwarranted Conclusions . 40

Instructions and Criticisms . 41

The Effect on Oval Drills on the Capitals. 43

PART II Questions and Answers Concerning Penmanship Pedagogy . 47

Questions and Answers Concerning Position . 54

Questions and Answers Concerning Movement . 56

Questions and Answers Concerning the Capitals . 60

Questions and Answers Concerning the Small Letters . 62

Questions and Answers Concerning the Numerals . 64

Part III

Chart, Presentation of the Hausam System of Practical Penmanship. ... 69

The Controlling Strokes of the Capital Letters . 70

Group I of the Capital Letters . 73

Group II of the Capital Letters . 74

Group III of the Capital Letters . 75

Group IV of the Capital Letters . 76

Group V of the Capital Letters . 77

Group VI of the Capital Letters . 78

Group VII of the Capital Letters . 79

Group VIII of the Capital Letters. 80

The Numerals . 81

PART IV Page

Penmanship in the Grades . 83

Arranging the Work on the Page. 85

Models for Arranging the Work on the Page . 86

Writing Materials . 89

The Schedule . 91

Standards for Grading Specimens of Writing in Grade I . 92

Standards for Grading Specimens of Writing in Grade II . 94

Standards for Grading Specimens of Writing in Grade III . 96

Standards for Grading Specimens of Writing in Grade IV . 98

Standards for Grading Specimens of Writing in Grade V . 100

Standards for Grading Specimens of Writing in Grade VI . 102

Standards for Grading Specimens of Writing in Grade VII . 104

Standards for Grading Specimens of Writing in Grade VIII . 106

Instructions for Presenting Book I . 109

Instructions for Presenting Book II . 128

Instructions for Presenting Book III . 145

Instructions for Presenting Book IV . 157

Instructions for Presenting Book V . 176

Instructions for Presenting Book VI . 192

Instructions for Presenting Book VII. 211

PART V Penmanship for High Schools and Colleges . 231

Schedule for First Semester . 233

Elaborated Schedule. 233

Standards of Speed . 234

Beginning of Mere Movement Drills, Lesson 1 . 234

Beginning of Capital Letters, Lesson 11 . 240

Beginning of Small Letter Movement Drills, Lesson 38 255

Schedule for Second Semester. 273

Elaborated Schedule. 274

Beginning of Mere Movement Drills, Lesson 1 . 275

Beginning of Capital Letter Movement Drills, Lesson 11 281

Beginning of Small Letter Movement Drills, Lesson 26 290

Beginning of Signatures, Lesson 36 296

Beginning of Body Writing, Lesson 51 . 301

Part I General Discussions

This section is devoted to psychological, physiological and peda¬ gogical discussions of teaching plain penmanship. It is believed that these discussions invade fields and present phases of the sub¬ ject that give it a new setting. A critical study of the chapters of this section is invited and it is confidently believed that the earnest student will find himself well repaid for the time and effort so spent.

THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION

Teaching involves the principles of salesmanship. As in sales¬ manship one cannot be said to have sold until some one has bought, so in teaching one cannot be said to have taught until some one has learned. A person may stand behind a counter and wait upon customers who come to purchase without being a salesman; and so may one sit behind a teacher’s desk and call the classes designated on the program without being a teacher.

Teaching implies being taught—learning. Common school teach¬ ing, involving as it does many subjects, implies that pupils are learning many subjects. That these rules eliminate penmanship from the general scope of teaching is indisputable when one ex¬ amines the writing of the average public school graduate. These pupils have not been taught penmanship, otherwise they would have learned it—have it in possession, just as they would have possessed an article of merchandise had it been sold to them. Merely offering merchandise or displaying it to the public is not salesmanship; neither is offering the subjects of the school curriculum to pupils, teaching.

Teaching implies the creation of a special environment about a pupil and bringing the pupil into such a relation with that environ¬ ment that he will find his interest aroused in and feel an impulse to attempt to grasp a given subject. Unless this special atmosphere can be created the pupil will be unresponsive. The work required to create this atmosphere, or environment, varies with individuals, due to the disposition, knowledge, habits and ambitions which the pupil brings into the problem.

The teacher cannot create the atmosphere, or environment, nec¬ essary to the performance of teaching, out of nothing. It can only be created out of the disposition, knowledge, habits and ambition of the teacher himself. These imply preparation. The disposition must be amiable, patient, constant, energetic. The knowledge must be specific. It must embody a knowledge of the details of perfect script forms; of the position of the body at the desk and of holding the pencil or pen; of the proper order in which to present the ele¬ ments of the subject; of the value of visual impressions; of the importance of rhythm; of the effect of interest; of the method of developing writing movements; of the nature and necessity of correct habits, and of the principles of constructive criticism. The habits must be correct and well fixed for doing work in an orderly manner; observing attractive arrangements, neatness and cleanli¬ ness ; making good script forms with correct proportions of height and with uniform spacing and slant; using the arm movement; counting with an energetic and stimulating voice; being on the floor among the pupils with encouraging glances, words and acts while they practice. The teacher’s ambition must be to see his energy, his ability, his knowledge, his disposition translated into his pupils. He must feel the same deep satisfaction in observ¬ ing the effectiveness of his teaching that the salesman feels in making important sales; the gunner on the battleship in hitting his target; the runner in winning his race. He must feel emo¬ tions of zeal and pride in his success as measured by the progress of his pupils.

The importance of preparation for the teacher who is to be able to create the true educational environment is all-important. It is natural to no one. That some have great advantages over others by virtue of early environment and training is indeed true, but each teacher is virtually only what he has created himself to be. Nature bestows few if any gifts.

The first great need of the teacher is the realization of the need of preparation; the second is the realization of the kind of prep¬ aration needed, and the third is the need of patient, energetic, systematic, painstaking, persistent effort to make the necessary preparation. A teacher possessed of such a realization and dis¬ position will inevitably teach writing so as to attain gratifying results.

Merely reading theories or listening to lectures on teaching the subject will never suffice to make a successful teacher of penmanship. The teacher must pass through the several phases of prac¬ tice in conjunction with the study of the subject matter to under¬ stand the nature and value of the elements involved; and must have sufficient ability to demonstrate to the pupils by illustrations on the blackboard and on paper how the execution of good pen¬ manship is accomplished. When the pupil says, “Show me,” the teacher has come face to face with the supreme opportunity. A skillful performance at this time will arouse almost undying in¬ terest in the pupil. Evex-y successful teacher must realize that teaching is an art, the greatest of arts, and an art to be learned by thinking and by practice.

WRITING AS A DUAL VALUE SUBJECT

There is an old adage which says: “The greatest invention of man is speech; the most useful is writing.” Perhaps this is not so accurate as it would be to say that speech is the most useful as well as the greatest invention of man. It is, however, wholly true that writing is second to speech both in the greatness of the invention and in its usefulness. An outstanding fact, which many teachers do not recognize, is that speech; that is, the command of language—accurate, comprehensive language, is very generally an accurate gxxage of a person’s general ability. Teachers who have carefully observed this fact are aware that pupils who are proficient in language; those who read well; that is, those who have such a knowledge of words as to be able to interpret ac¬ curately the meaning of the author they read, usually rank high¬ est in their other subjects. Mathematics teachers will often find that the trouble with their pupils is not that they cannot under¬ stand mathematics, but that they do not understand English. The same trouble is very noticeable in science, in history and in lit¬ erature classes.

This must be true because language is a fundamental requisite in every subject. It is the one necessary tool wherewith results may be wrought in other undertakings. Pupils who have had adequate training in language, whether at home or in school, have, the while, received training in clear and accurate thinking, in system, and in pride in accomplishment. They understand what they read and hear, and say wha,t they mean. Language is, in fact, in their hands a tool of high,quality, and is, at the same time, a high quality tool in trained hands because it is in the hands of one who knows how to use such a tool. This combination, as a general rule, makes such a person rank high in all his under¬ takings.

What is true of speech is true, in a slightly less degree, of writing. The accuracy of form; the fineness of line quality; the precise co-ordination of nerve and muscle and mind; the sense of pride in producing something pleasing or beautifixl; the lessons in application and concentration that ever must accompany learning to write well; the consciousness of becoming a master; of becom¬ ing somewhat distinguished for skill among his associates; of pos¬ sessing a refined tool, all contribute toward making the pupil who masters penmanship to a satisfactory degree one of higher than ordinary rank in general ability.

Writing, as an art in itself, is worth all the time and effort re¬ quired to master it; but its value is enhanced beyond estimate when it is considered in its dual aspect of a fine art and a tool in working with all other educational subjects. In this latter aspect penmanship holds a position altogether like that of lan¬ guage, as already mentioned; viz., that pupils or students who are good penmen are, as a general rule, good in other subjects. This, as with language, must be true, because, under such circumstances, it is a case of a high quality tool being used by one who has been trained to handle such a tool.

Teachers very often fail to see the need for good penmanship because they are altogether accustomed to poor penmanship and have made a complete adjustment of themselves to poor writing. They are like our forebears who were adjusted to poor artificial light. That they coixld accomplish so little by such light, did not cause them to complain of that light. But now that we have be¬ come accustomed to good light, we think it incomprehensible that anyone could ever have gotten along without it. We realize now how much we owe to our superior light, and how much the world has gained in the hours that have been added to the day by its means.

Countless thousands of teachers do not realize how much more effective work might be done in mathematics, history, geography, civics, science, and all subjects, were the pupils properly trained in language. They often observe that the children who come from families where the foundation for good language is laid securely in earliest infancy and fostered properly through early childhood, are bright and apt, and rank high in all their subjects; but they do not realize that language, and the training that of necessity accompanied the learning of language in the manner in which it was learned, is the one largest element in accounting for the pupil’s superiority. It is in general true that one may judge a pupil’s capabilities by his vocabulary. It is still more generally true that those who have very limited vocabularies and are of low rank in language, are practically uniformly of low rank in all other subjects, and their improvement in other subjects is measured by their improvement in language.

General as is the practice of underestimating the value of good language as a tool in handling other subjects, the practice of underestimating the value of good penmanship is incalculably more so. Not one teacher in hundreds seems to have ever con¬ sidered good writing from this viewpoint. Having seen none of it either in the schools they have attended or taught, they do not appreciate any of its real benefits. Their only complaint is heard when the writing is so poor as to pass into the realm of the un¬ intelligible. They have progressed so far as to know that in¬ correct verbs and pronouns are reprehensible, and strive, each after his own manner, to inculcate something of correct theory in language; but poor penmanship means nothing more than a pupil’s misfortune, which it is none of their responsibility to remedy.

Teachers do not realize that it is possible for all normal pupils and students to write hands that are as legible as print; that can be written with rapidity and ease; that can be reduced to a prac¬ tice as habitual as using a knife or fork; and which, like using the knife and fork, may vary according to an indefinite gradation of standards. It seems not to be clearly impressed upon teachers’ minds that there is a great saving of time and energy both on the part of the pupils and teachers in good penmanship. A pupil who has been properly trained in penmanship is able to write from two to four times as rapidly as is possible for one who has not had such training. The proportion of energy required in the two cases shows a still greater contrast, since the pupil who has been prop¬ erly trained has formed a habit of writing well, and habits are largely unconscious actions. The time and annoyance saved the teacher in reading manuscripts in good penmanship are, likewise, from two to four fold, over that of struggling through the illegible scrawls of untrained pupils.

The best organized schools must in ever larger degree stress language and penmanship as the two fundamental subjects that should have first consideration, because they must realize, more and more, that these are the daily and life-long tools wherewith all subjects are handled. Given a good language habit and a good writing habit, practically no child would fail to gain a good gen¬ eral education even if deprived of routine schooling. Lacking in these, it seems safe to say, no one can make progress educationally. That penmanship has not been given its proper consideration is due to the fact that it has proved, poor as has been its quality, in a way sufficient, just as the sickle and the scythe seemed for ages sufficient. Deprive pupils utterly of writing and the im¬ portance of the subject comes home with a crushing weight.

THE QUESTION OF IMITATION AND INDIVIDUALITY

The first step in any art is imitation. Without imitation no child can make a beginning. This imitative process carries the child into the realm of form-building and enables him to construct a foundation upon which he may later stand and begin to form judgments and concepts of his own. To arrive at a truly pedagogic conclusion in this subject one must commence considering the child before it has had its first impression of an art form, and also as it receives its first impulse to imitate a form. This child may, of course, receive any one of countless form impressions. It may also have the same images repeatedly stamped upon its mind as it commences to imitate these forms. As it strives to express the mental pictures it has received it, of course, com¬ mences to reproduce form, and the form it tries to reproduce is one of the impressions of form it has received.

At this beginning in art the child is, very generally, permitted to receive its impressions of form unaided. This is the first and most general cause of poor penmanship among school children.

Having no adequate foundation upon which to stand in forming concepts, making comparisons and formulating judgments, and undertaking at the same time to reproduce its impressions, it must, in its first attempts, inevitably make the forms incorrectly. Having made a form, or having attempted to do so, it receives an impression from the form it has produced that is more definite and lasting than the impression it has previously received from merely looking at a form. In the large majority of cases the child muddles its way into the mysteries of form-building by this process, expressing a very crude form because it has never con¬ ceived a better one, and re-impressing that crude form upon its mind repeatedly.

This crude form at last becomes the child’s everyday tool in all his studies that require writing, and those who are ignorant of the process by which the child created this crude tool are in¬ stantly ready to say that it is his “individuality.” It would be equally wise to say that crooked spines, stooped shoulders, pigeon toes, or slovenliness, carelessness, and general ignorance in all subjects are his “individuality,” because his plane of action in all lines would be as crude as is his writing if he were taught in the other subjects in a like crude manner.

No one who has mastered the elements of good penmanship, even to a fair degree, has ever claimed that the miserable scrawl that is produced by the average school boy or girl and school teacher, and called writing, is poor because it “expresses his or her individuality.” Such groundless statements can come only from those who are ignorant of the psychology of learning art.

The fact is that individuality becomes more and more fully ex¬ pressed as the instrument of expression becomes more and more perfect. To express any idea there must be an instrument ade¬ quate to the purpose. The most highly trained musician, artist, sculptor, scientist, penman expresses his individuality most fully. Without improving the means of expression we should all be boors, just as the poor writer is to that extent a boor; just as all who are ignorant of literature, of art, of music, of science, of history, of all the products of cultivation and civilization are, to the extent of their ignorance, boors.

Good penmanship awakens pride in doing because it affords a means of expressing skill; it improves the sense of order because it furnishes the implement for demonstrating arrangement; it cultivates the appreciation of the beautiful because it is itself the embodiment of beauty; it stimulates interest in all other edu¬ cational subjects in handling which it may become the individual’s tool.

It has been demonstrated repeatedly by innumerable surveys that pupils who are best in penmanship are nearly uniformly best in their otlf'er subjects. This must ever be true since writing is a tool, and one working with a good tool, which he has learned to handle with skill, can create a better product than can be done with a poor tool in an untrained hand. This is true despite the success of the countless poor writers in all lines of human activity. These same individuals would doubtless have found a serious handicap removed had they been trained to write well in their early school life. It is indeed true that as much has been ad¬ mitted times without number.

The child should be encouraged to imitate the best models and continue this process of imitation until he arrives at the time when he must begin to make application of his acquisition to the solution of his own problem. He will then re-shape, modify, adapt and eliminate as necessity requires until he has reduced his writing to a vehicle perfectly adapted to his needs. But he will retain the elements of legibility and beauty and the ease of execu¬ tion as he retains his habits of walking and handling his knife and fork. And like handling his knife and fork he may do so accord¬ ing to the standards of good usage or after the manner of the untrained, the uncouth, the ignorant. But the best penmanship provides the best means of expressing individuality just as the best manners and the best general education make the same pro¬ vision. Those who condemn good penmanship as lacking in in¬ dividuality must with the same reason also condemn good lan¬ guage, good manners and all human culture.

PERMANENT RESULTS

Perhaps the most serious problem that must be solved by the teacher of penmanship, especially in the grades, next to that of actually teaching the subject, is how to make the results become the permanent possession of the pupil. It is not difficult to make the subject carry over into the pupil’s other branches, because any skill attained can be required and secured in practically all the pupil’s writing; but to so develop the pupil as to largely eliminate the liability to relapse into former practices and habits is serious and difficult.

The impressions and training received by pupils in the grades, being received during their tender years, will inevitably fade if not persisted in during the later years when their habits are be¬ coming finally fixed; that is, during the years when their natures are becoming less plastic. Good acquisitions as well as bad are often outgrown before the formative period of a pupil’s life is completed, because they are merely given a start and then allowed to shift and drift without direction or attention.

There are two fundamental requirements in the process of in¬ fusing penmanship skill into the life of a boy or girl in such a manner as to make it a permanent asset; viz.:

1. To persist in teaching the subject either as such or in correlation with other subjects throughout the pupil's or student’s school career.

2. To arouse and crystallize in the pupil a well defined pride in doing things well.

The first of these requirements can be fulfilled in any school or school system, if its importance is understood and considered at the time of re-shaping the policies of the school or school system. First of all, penmanship should be as properly and thoroughly taught in all the grades as are the other required subjects. Second, the pupil’s best penmanship should be required in all written work, and incorrect letter forms and careless or indifferent penmanship should be criticised as sharply as poor spelling, mistakes in sen¬ tence structure, wrong calculations or misstatements of facts. Such a correlation of penmanship with other subjects will in¬ evitably raise the standard of penmanship. The attitude toward handwriting should be the same as the attitude toward language and mistakes should be as assiduously corrected. It is universally recognized as good pedagogy to consider spelling and sentence structure in connection with all other subjects. The same rule should be applied to writing.

The second requirement is much more difficult to achieve. Pupils are found to belong to two fairly well defined classes, with many shades bridging the gulf between them. These two classes are those who have a sense of pride in what they do, and those who do not have such a pride. The members of the former class are possessed of more or less clean cut ideals to which appeal can be made, and which prompt them to respond to appeals of beauty, cleanliness, order, arrangement and accuracy. Pupils in the latter class seem to be devoid of ideals and cannot be appealed to, but seem possessed of the notion that nothing is to be done ex¬ cept that which cannot be avoided, and that when vigilance is withdrawn pains need no longer be taken and effort may cease. This is the class that relapses into former habits of indifference and slovenliness as soon as the pressure that has pushed it to its present plane of achievement is no longer applied. In contemplating this class, which is unfortunately large, one is continually re¬ minded that the penmanship does not seem to carry over or main¬ tain itself through high school, in college, or in business. When pupils of this class are left to their own devices they make no effort beyond the minimum. In writing a theme they lose sight of spelling, penmanship and any other element not emphatically re¬ quired in the task. All elementary development through which such pupils may have passed in their earlier school life seems soon to pass into oblivion. Apparently nothing short of the incessant watchfulness of an ever-present teacher is sufficient to hold them to maximum effort. This, of course, cannot be provided. The only other recourse is to establish in the pupil a spirit of pride in doing his best; in superior achievement; in feeling a delight in pro¬ ducing something that bears the stamp of excellence. Such a sense once awakened will be a constant stimulus in his life, and will grow with time and effort. It will be a quickening light in his life by which the sense of skill will be illumined and magni¬ fied, and which will impel the ideal to push through into ex¬ pression as a reality. Any pupil will be safe once an adequate pride in personal achievement has been awakened in him. No pupil is safe without it, for without it carelessness, slovenliness, indifference will flourish in him like weeds in a foul field and will choke out everything worth while.