Show FIN 6 an y X R J los r u 7 by ELMO SCOTT WATSON RE KB you left handed and if you are do your A friends look upon you as being well just a bit queer because youre 7 0 different even in tills this little respect from the rest of humanity it if you are and they do dont let it bother you for instead of left handed I 1 ness being something to be concerned about its something over wb th you can be just a bit proud heres one reason away back in ancient times a left handed man was considered the darling of the gods and he was frequently honored with high ollice office for no other reason than that lie he was one of it these darlings of the gods tile the evidence of which being the fact that he was left handed so although you may not believe in gods as did the ancients if you have any faith in lady luck luch or any of the other members of the modern pantheon which we know by a variety of names all having to do with luck or chance you might well allow yourself to believe that those these modern gods will smile upon you because youre a southpaw even as the ancient deities did la in the olden days and you can tell friends too that you have illustrious company in your left handedness the are said to have been left handed banded as were the greater caesars caesara and they were rather important people in their times alexander the great who conquered the world did it with his good not right but left arm for history records that he grasped his trusty sword with his left hand then there was charlemagne the patron of scholars mho he when he did any writing t all grasped his bis pen in lils ills left hand surely these are notables with whom you be ashamed to claim left handed banded kin ship chipi I 1 put but to get down to more modern times which milich would you rather be one of the host of right hand band pitchers in the major leagues league or one of that more exclusive group of diamond stars such port wheelers as willie sherdel of the st luls louis cardinals one of the heroes of the 1026 1926 worlds series or herb pennock the hero of the 1127 1927 championship battle or mabe ruth who was a left handed bonded pitcher before he deserted tire the slab to become the sultan of swat of course one of the earliest of the grent great routh couth paws rube nube waddell Is still remembered as one of the queerest prayers in baseball history but the fact remains that he was one of the truly gront great slab artists artiste of all time to so it matter whether he was queer because he was left handed or left handed because he wee wae queer an a matter of fact a lot of this belief about the queerness til of left banded people to la mere superstition after all to get at the exola explanation nation of left handedness and some of the phenomena such as the so go called mirror or reversed handwriting connected with it it Is necessary to go brick back to the earliest day of the genus homo home to in the day of the care man neither right nor left hand band had preferred usage and modern excavations have brought to light just as many implements fashioned tor for I 1 lefthand ft use as for right hand when the cute caie man ties desired red to lo set down his thoughts in picture writing it was done witti with either hand more than that the writing was from froio right to left quite as often as it was from left to right and this survived to a much later day for a form forin of uri writing ting culled called boustrophedon u used th in early greek and latin in script lons Ions often showed every other line written right to left in mirror fashion that Is it won would fe resemble left to right writing if reflected in a mirror the increasing usage of the right hand in preference to the left come came about as primitive methods of warfare developed the left band and arm were used to hold tile the shield over the heart to guard it from a fatal thrust and the sword or spear was ulel wielded dood in the right since the nerve fibers which govern the right arm and right leg you remember from the study of physiology in school of course about this crossing over in the nervous system are located in the left side of tile the brain that side of the brain being more active became highly developed and the right side of the brain controlling the left side of the body accordingly became less high highly ly developed so as time went on men became not only right handed banded and right legged and right footed but right eyed as well that Is to say the he vision in the right eye became keener than in the left tile the skin also become became more sensitive on the right side and the senses of touch taste and smell became more acute on oil that see sec tion along with this greater develop ment on the right side there begun began to grow up tip a certain amount of superstition sti tion lon it In included eluded the old roman custom of putting the right foot at the he beginning ginnIng from this custom originated the saying which persists to this day about put ting your best foot forward the best foot being of course the right this Is responsible also for the fear which many people have of entering a room with the left foot forward despite the fact that most people are rig right b handed approximately one out of ever twenty five Is 19 a throw back to the primitive days when all were ambidextrous and these four per cent persist in being left handed just why they ore are left handed science has never yet been able to explain sat Is factor ly one of the burlous evidences of this throwback Is the tendency toward the so bo called nill mil or reversed writing alt although bough not all left handed persons b have ave that tendency A short abort time ago one of the news pictures picture which was widely published inthis in this country was that of willie cozens of london FOK fog a six year old boy who was described as suffering buffering from a rire rare aliment lie he Is physically normal but because of a peculiar development of the brain he writes backwards beginning at the right side of the paper and writing all the letters the wrong way round As it a matter in tier of fa tact e t willies WIl lles habit of writing his name maillow maillia maill mail lW liw only the letters themie hes are also reversed Is not cot a rare ailment at all it Is rather common as the testimony of dr robert kingman of Broo liln N Y a physician who has made it a special study of mirror writing will show ile he says in nearly every school there are ar several left handed first graders who w will i ll 11 annoy their teachers and alarm h heir e ir paren parents a by insisting nal sting on writing we words da backward as elipa for apple they may also eory copy numbers backward as for unfortunately there are many teachers and parents who such a child as feebleminded feeble minded or queer they ridicule him and force him to write with his right hand only many girle and boys are afflicted with stutt cluttering erinc and other nervous dle disorders ordera from just such coercion if allowed to use their left hand they could learn to write the conventional way and later become c 0 fro ambidextrous ambidexterity amb Is advisable a as a means to promote symmetrical development of body and mind Bl manual dex Is of practical advantage to ball players carpenters and surgeons the hero of the western movie thriller always save eaves his fair lady with two handed gun play and there keemp sound round reason for the belief that two Z handed ande of facility would serve equally well in real life As a matter of tact fact mirror writing Is the easiest and most natural movement for any ny untrained person who holds a pen in the left hand this Is true because outward movements are easier than inward move men mants t 9 1 I know personally of many eases cases where adults of high intelligence reverted to mirror writing un at some period of their life according to doctor RIng kingman ninn there are two different cents centers for the act of writing as for all other muscular movements one Is parti ally suppressed by modern habit and often tries to work at the slimp time as the other oilier when the child trips to loom learn a skilled trob movement with the right hand he cannot prevent the left hand from following with the same movement so the flip left hand when it produces mirror writing uses muscle movements that are natural nii ural because the brain centers for mirror writing i unconsciously are formed symmetrically with those for the right hand Ile our ey system tern of eddler ono Is IR one sided the mirror writing centers in the right brain are sup pressed hut but they alley tire are potentially lust tte tre same they crot out inthe left handed person hut but that Is not a aln of queerness at all it Is simply the flip throwback if your child Is left handed ant try to Il irpak lire alt him of it encourage him to use uee lit his right hand bond more to in lipf ome amilide arous trous thus thur 1 ing that of hody body find mind of which doctor doat r kingman speaks |