Show his fine Spen ceran nand hand T T by ELMO SCOTT WATSON 0 YOU remember the days when penmanship ID was one of the most important subjects taught in district and do you remember how you dreaded the coming of the daily writing practice ti because it meant that f for or a period which seemed in interminable you had to sit stiffly erect at your desk see key to correct position hold your pen in just st so see key to correct pen holding holdin ai and write in your copybook such precepts as practice is the best of all instructors and receive ceide an injury rather than do on one e and wisely Vi sely improve the present it is thine and woe be to you if you dipped your pen too deeply in tile the inkwell that kind that had the little iron lid on oil it remember and you made a hig big blot on oil tile the page I 1 anil and dr do sot 1011 i remember liow how careful you were the watchful eye of teacher to put tile forefinger lint flat upon the barrel of the penholder pen holder to kaep the top of tile the pen bolder pointing to the right shoulder and to use the whole arm in writing with an easy flow rowing motion and then as soon as she hall had passed along to the next earnest exponent of the hie fine art of penmanship do you remember how quickly your forefinger humped up on the penholder pen holder so that you were wera soon clutching it in a deathlike death like grip rip and you forgot all about that easy flowing motion of 0 the whole arm remember how hov you hunched over the desk and NA ith your tongue sticking out as though it could help push the pen you hurried through writing the required number ber of lines in your copybook so that you yon could lie among the first to dash for the door when teacher said that will he be enough writ in ins practice for today put away your books tor for recess perhaps though you one of those who ho dreaded ailed that daily writing practice and looked upon it as an ordeal to be gotten through with is as quickly and painlessly as possible perhaps Ier haps sou jou were one of those who aho believed with the copy books that practice Is the best beat of all instructors so you were faithful in that practice because you wanted your alting to look nice when you wrote rote in a friends autograph book some such sentiment as my pen is 19 poor my bly ink Is pale but my love for or sou will never fall and then of course there was always the possibility of that further turl lier reward of having people say of you lie he writes a fine hand or else Ms ills handwriting Is just like copperplate engraving for those were the days when ullen americans took pride in their penmanship when nhen offhand olT off hand band flourishing was aas a real art and when one might almost say the pen was truly mightier than the sword today thousands of clattering typewriters chronicle tile the fact that now Is the alie time for all good men to come to the ibe aid of the party or that tile quick brown fox fos jumps oner oer the lazy dos dog today speed rather than artistry Is tile the demand in writing so today the name of platt il itt rogers spencer moans means but little to most americans although they perpetuate his fame when they uso use such an expression as ills his flue erlan hand but there was a time when ills name was waa a synonym for elegant script and his style of penmanship was vas a model for school children all over the united states so in this machine age lien the typewriter lias has made chirography it 11 lost art and the hasty basty american scrawl has become notorious it seems worth while to toll tell again the story of platt rogers spencer the ohio form boy who min wanted to become a minister and who thwarted in that ambition turned ills his talents to the task of teaching a whole nation good handwriting and became fa amous as the father of penmanship S spencer pencer was horn borri september 7 1801 on a poverty ridden farm in the little settlement of east fishkill in dutchess Dut choss county new york ile ho was mas the eleventh clevent li and youngest child of caleb cairo spencer a native of rhode island and ami a veteran of the revolution and jerusha covell spencer a native of f the town of chatham on capo cape cod caleb spencer died when his soundest soun gest child was nas five years old soon afterwards J spencer sold the farm and moved with ith tier her brood of 11 across the hudson river to the sparsely settled community of windham in greene county although the management of tj the e widow spencers new farm kept her busy she took a keen interest in passing on to her children her education scanty as it was and in developing ve their minds when her youngest born platt first began to form letters with charcoal on ft a board she recognized ills ability and encouraged him in his writing to in those days western emigration was la in the air in 1806 the first canvas topped conestoga wagons laden with house household hoid furniture hall had trailed across the alleghenies into the far west of ohio at that time called the western reserve mrs spencer talked the matter over with her older sons and it was decided to sell the farm and go to ohio in 1810 tile family started westward after many days of slow difficult going they arrived in the western reserve they halted in the forest at a little collection of log cabins the beginnings of tile the town of Jeffer jefferson sola in ashtabula Ath county ohio in this pioneer settlement platt grew up helping on the farm in the summer and in the lie winter combining household chores with reading and writing raper paper wag mas unprocurable but he wroth wrote in the snow slid and on the sand anti and with charcoal on the floor door the traveling cobbler who visited each farm in winter to make a years supply of shoes for the family lent the boy ills chalk aud and let him write on the large pieces of sole leather that were waiting to be cut up the family was proud of his skill and as a special treat on sundays ills his mother allowed him to write her favorite scripture texts in ink on tile 1 leaves of her precious bible when platt was twelve years old a district school was opened in a one room log cabin in conneaut Conne aut ten miles away A soung vermont yankee was the schoolmaster platt walked the ten miles to and from school throughout the N winter inter ile he was not a particularly sociable youth and being serious minded ile he part partitioned i on off ills his desk 1 in I one corner where lie he demoted much time to his bis beloved writing the schoolmaster soon discovered this pupils bent and kept him occupied furnishing copies of lessons for the school text textbooks booLs being expensive and very difficult to procure spencer himself walked 20 miles barefoot in the late fall to get a copy of Da bolls arithmetic that he be had heard was as for sale cheap on the way home lie he slept in a barn as lie he was too bashful basli ful to ask tor for lodging and his only food was a raw turnip this hard bard and scanty existence seemed only to foster his love of grace and elegance lie ile grew in y ak I 1 af A 12 7 Z 1 ix if 1 X Z INS j n AN EXAMPLE OF OFFHAND flourishing te crested terestea in poetry and began to try his hand at writing it most of his bis verses were dedicated to the art of peri penmanship manship and ere ou on some such theme as this I 1 the tongue Is 13 not the only way through which the active mind Is heard gut but the good pen as well can say rn in tones as 03 sweet it a gentle word then speed we on this art to gain that leads all others in its train embalms our task from day to day bids budding virtues live for aye brings learning home the mind to store before our scho scenes are oer for spencer schooldays school days soon over during tits his third winter he taught ills first writing classes in ili the log schoolhouse when summer came lie he ended tits school career to become clerk and bookkeeper in a general store those three winters of schooling were all the formal education he ever had 4 oo 00 11 4 4 XV 14 KEY TO CORRECT PEN HOLDING 1 put the forefinger flat upon the barrel of the penholder pen holder 2 put the second finger nail under the penholder pen holder 3 put the upper corner of the thumb nail against the penholder pen holder opposite the first joint of the forefinger 4 bend the joints of the thumb outward 5 keep the penholder pen holder up against the side of the forefinger 6 keep the forefinger straightened 7 keep the wrist straight and off the desk or book 8 keep both points of the pen on the paper alike the above Is reproduced from EIls Ell edition published by the werner company when he was twenty two lie he decided to go to college to prepare for the ministry rut but a taste for liquor inherited from hla his father and aggravated by the prevalent drinking customs was too strong for him lie he failed to pass the entrance requirements if spencer had not been a hard drinker the course of penmanship in the united states might never have felt the influence of his brilliant pen when the ministry was closed to him he turned to teaching handwriting and traveled through ohio from town to town and even from farm to farm gathering pupils around him ne he revisited new york state in taught there two soars and returned to ohio where in isis lie he married miss persis duty a young teacher who lad hail caught the midwestern iio neer spirit they settled in ashtabula and then moved to geneva where inhere they lived most of the time except for short periods in jefferson Jef Terson and ln on the farm lie he took alier he built jericho the log seminary defore before long people gathered from all parts of ohio the and from eastern states to study under him ilean meanwhile alile lie he worked to strike a mean between the labored fullness of the round penmanship hand and the rigid sharpness of the angular As an expert penman spencer did not follow rules lie he made them and the versatility of ills hla ima imagination ina was the despair 0 of those who imitated him ills his brain was particularly ticul arly fertile in inventing varying forms for the same letters one of 0 ills his specimen sheets shows the capital letter S written in ten different ways all simple graceful and legible beyond simple handwriting spencer was a genius in the faSCI fascinating Dating art of offhand oft hand flourishing this was the use of the swinging swing ing pen stroke to create swans eagles stags and palm trees full of intricate shade lines and swirls the ability to make mak e these drawings drawing s and designs low flow front from his pen increased the admiration in which he was held hy by his contemporaries ue believed however that nourishing flourishing of this sort was a separate art nod and introduced it into his copy boul books for the purpose of showing ore off as abd many less talented penmen who cani caim after him in 1832 lift hit ohio and spencer became a total abstainer when it became known knon that he hild had reformed popular sentiment demanded tits his election to the office odice of treasurer of ashtabula Asli county an office lie ho held beld for 12 years spencer published ills first copybook in IS 1818 IS long after ills his fame had spread through lie he east and middle west the volume was tremendously popular and firmly established spencers fame and fortune penmanship became the study of the nation and Spen cerlan copybooks cop books could not be published faba enough to meet the demand when business men began demanding better penmen in their offices and the Spen cerlan systems fame spread platt piatt K R spencer went to pittsburgh where be founded foun deil the Spen cerlan commercial colleg in 1852 1832 illness forced him to close it two years later in 1801 assisted by his bis sons lie he revised the system and produced a new series of copybooks printed by phinney company Buff ruffillo illo they were transferred in osgi to the house of ivison blakeman taylor company new yolk this modest copybook became a best seller in the days when hen best sellers were nere few and called by a different name during ISTO more than a million copies were sold 9 keep the top of the penholder pen holder pointing to the right shoulder 10 keep the arms and paper in line KEY TO CORRECT POSITION a sit upright b sit square to the desk facing it it c sit close to the desk without touching it d rest both forearms on the desk just forward of the elbows e rest the right hand on the under corner of the little finger nail at aab B f rest the fingers of the left hand on the front of the paper g rest both feet squarely on the floor the left in advance of the right new reversible writing books vertical chicago new york 1894 lie ile traveled about the united states teaching and lecturing finally the man who had failed to get into college as a student because he drank accepted a call to eclectic institute nt at hiram ohio today hiram college as professor of penmanship while he was there a poorly clad self taught farm lad came cama to the college as a student he ha supported himself by ringing the college bell and sweeping out the buildings he studied under spencer and later in life wrote a let 4 IL I 1 A I 1 r W PLATT R SPENCER ter to one of spencers sons praising his father the letter was signed james A garfield for the aspiring young man studying business penmanship spencer wrote these prophetic lines soon the untaught hand that feebly guides the pen shall sweep the curve in buster busier haunts of 0 roen men where each days doings on lifes active stage stae arrayed in light shall crown the well writ jaee when spencers wife died in 1802 after a long illness the waster master pennan nan seemed to lose heart and began to age rapidly in the geneva public library first called the spencer memorial library is a faded flourish on oil a bit of yellowed paper which hears bears these lines liffe life Is line and may tt it be well fored connected tasteful freel tr and ninny a happy year be thine ere cre death shall close thy perfect line death closed spencers well formed line ou on may 10 1864 business colleges throughout the country draped the portrait of their master in black anil and former students of his wrote encomiums on his career ond find hs his character in their best cerlan hand today by the side of a road near geneva stands a modest granite boulder it bears a bronze tablet which tells the passerby passer by that one mile north of the boulder once stood one on of americas first writing schools the cradle of her system of penmanship within its crude walls walla platt 11 spencer conducted summer institutes from 1853 to ISO ISM expounding the beauties of his system the Spen cerlan to teachers coming from all parts of the country not far away Is evergreen cemetery to in it stands a large monument bearing a large familiar script over a quill under the names of platt K R spencer and perets D duty uty spencer Is this inscription their lives wore were kindly earnest and beneficent that epitaph might bell ell have been a copybook maxim for later zene generations rations of americans to write in a fine Spen cerlan hand ban I 1 0 western newspaper union |