Show his fine 0 a iland hand by ELMO SCOTT WATSON 0 YO YOU U remember the days when penmanship was one one of the most important subjects taught in district sz hool and do you remember how you dreaded the comino coining of the daily writing bract practice ce because it meant that for a period which seemed interminable n you had to sit stiffly erect at your desk see key to correct position hold your pen just so see key to correct pen holding arid and write in your copybook such precepts as practice is the best of all instructors and receive an all injury rather than do one and wisely improve the present it is thine arid and woe be to you if you dipped your pen too deeply in the inkwell that kind that had tile alie little iron lid on it rc remember member and you made a big blot on the pa page oe I 1 A and ad do you remember how careful you were under the watchful eye of teacher to put the forefinger flat upon the barrel of the penholder pen holder to keep the top of the penholder pen holder pointing to the right shoulder and to use the whole arm in writing with an easy flowing motion and then as soon as slie she had passed along to the next earnest exponent of the fine art of penmanship do you remember how quickly your tour forefinger humped up on the penholder pen holder so that you were soon clutching it in a deathlike death like grip and you forgot all about that easy flowing motion of the whole arm remember how you hunched bunched over the desk and with your tongue sticking out as thou though gh it could help push the pen you hurried through writing the required number of lines in your copybook so that you could be among the first to dash for the door when hen teacher said that will be enough writing practice for today put away your tour books for recess perhaps though you one of those who dreaded that dally daily writing practice and looked upon it as an ordeal to be gotten through with as quickly and painlessly as possible perhaps you were one of those who beli believed eed with the copy books that practice Is the best of all instructors so aou ou were faithful in that practice because you wanted your handwriting to look nice when you wrote in a frie friends autograph book some such sentiment as my pen Is poor my ink is pale but my love for you will acer tall fall and then of course there was always the lie possibility of that further reward of having people say of you lie he writes a fine hand or else his handwriting Is just like copperplate engraving for those were the da days vs when americans took pride in their penmanship when nhen offhand flourishing was a real art and han one might almost say the pen was truly mightier than the sword today thousands of clattering typewriters chronicle the fact th that it 7 X UV V vi elm A 11 if P ta W wa MO g P I 1 f p I 1 II 11 I 1 fv I 1 z 4 Y AN EXAMPLE OF OFFHAND flourishing now is the time for or all good men to come to the aid of the party or that the quick brown tos fox jumps 0 oer er the lazy dog today speed rather than artistry Is the demand in writing so today the name of platt rogers spencer means but little to most americans although they perpetuate his fame when they use such an expression us his floe eue hand put but there was a time when his name was a synonym tor for elegant script and ills his style of 0 penmanship was a model for school children all over the united states so in this machine age when the typewriter has made chirography a lost art and the hasty american scrawl has become notorious it seems worth while to tell again the story of platt rogers spencer the ohio farm boy who wanted to become a minister unit and who thwarted in that ambition turned ills ids talents to th tho task of 0 teaching a whole nation good handwriting art and became fa as aa the father of penmanship spencer was born september 7 1801 on a poverty ridden farm in the little settlement of east fish kill 1 in dutchess county cou rity new york lie he was the eleventh and youngest child of caleb spencer a native of rhode island and a veteran of the revolution and Jerus jerusha lia covell spencer a native cf the town of chatham on cape cod caleb spencer died when his youngest child was vas five years old soon afterwards jerushia Jerus lia spencer sold the farni farm and moved with her brood of 11 across the gudson river to the sparsely settled community of windham in greene county although the management of the widow spencers new farm kept her busy she took a keen interest in passing on to her children her education CA ta on scanty as it was and in developing ve their minds when her youngest born platt first began to form letters with charcoal on a board she recognized his bis ability and encouraged him in his writing in those days western emigration was IS in the air in 1806 the first canvas topped conestoga wagons laden with household furniture 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 the family started westward after many days of slow difficult going gain they arrived in the western reserve they halted in the forest at a little collection of log to cabins the beginnings of the town of jefferson in ashtabula county ohio in this pioneer settlement platt piatt grew up helping on the farm in the summer and in the winter combining household chores with reading and writing paper was unprocurable but he wrote in the snow and on the sand and with charcoal on the floor the traveling cobbler who visited each farm in winter to make a years supply of shoes for the family lent the boy his chalk 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 his mother allowed him to write her favorite scripture tests in ink on the flyleaves fly leaves of her precious bible when platt was twelve years old a district school was opened in a one room to log cabin in conneaut Conn Conne oaut aut ten miles away A your young vermont yankee was the schoolmaster platt walked the ten miles to and from school throughout the winter lie ile was not a particularly sociable youth and being serious minded he be partitioned off his desk in one corner where lie he devoted much time to his beloved writing the schoolmaster soon discovered this pupils bent and kept him occupied furnishing copies of lessons for the school textbooks 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 be had heard beard was for sale cheap on the way home he be slept in a barn as he was too bashful to ask for lodging and his only food was as a raw turnip this hard and scanty existence seemed only to foster his love of grace and elegance lie grew in te rested in poetry and began to try his bis hand at writing it most of his verses were dedicated to the art of penmanship and were on some such theme as this the tongue la is not the only way through which the active mind la Is heard but the tha good pen as well can say in tones as sweet a gentle word then speed we on this art to grain gain that leads all others in its train embalms our task from day to day bids budding virtues live for or aye drinks brings learning home tho the mind to store before our scenes are for spencer schooldays school days were soon over during his third winter he be taught liis his first writing classes in the log schoolhouse when summer carue came lie he ended liis ills school career to become clerk and bookkeeper in a gerrial store those three winters or of schooling were all the formal education lie he ever had 4 0 18 IP 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 bolder 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 Ell now new reversible writing books vertical edition published by the werner company chicago new york 1894 when lie he was twenty two lie he decided to go to college to prepare for the ministry but a taste for liquor inherited from his father and aggravated by the prevalent drinking customs was too strong tor for him 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 lie ile revisited new york state in 1825 taught there two years and returned to ohio where in 8 lie he married miss persis duty a young teacher who had caught the midwestern pioneer spirit they settled in acht ashtabula abala and then moved to geneva where they lived most of the time except for short periods lods in jefferson and on the farm he be took over he built jericho the to log seminary before long ong people gathered from all parts of ohio the midwest and from eastern states to study under him meanwhile he be worked to strike a mean between the labored fullness of the round penmanship hand and the rigid sharpness of the angular As nn an expert penman spencer lid did not tollow follow rules lie be made them and the versatility of his bis imagination was the despair of those who imitated him ills brain was particularly ticul arly fertile in inventing Ini enting varying in forms for the same letters one of his specimen sheets shows the capital letter S written in ten different ways all simple graceful and leg legible ible beyond simple handwriting spencer anns a genius in the lie fascinating art of off of Thaud band floura nourishing ahing this was the use of the jiin swinging ang pen stroke to create swans eagles sta stags S and palm trees full of intricate shaded lines and swirls the ability to make these drawings and designs flow from his pen I 1 increased nerea ed the admiration in which lie was held by his contemporaries ile he believed however that flourishing of this sort was a separate art and rarely introduced it into his copybooks for the purpose of showing off as did many less talented penmen who came after him in I 1 temperance lilt hit ohio and spencer became a total abstainer when it became known that he had reformed popular sentiment demanded his election to the office of treasurer of ashtabula county an office he be held for 12 years spencer published its his first copybook in long after his fame had bad spread through the east and middle west the volume was tremendously popular and firmly established spencers tamo fame and fortune penmanship became the study of the nation and copybooks copi hooks books could not be published fast enough to meet the demand when business men began demanding better penmen in their offices and the systems fame spread platt R spencer went to pittsburgh where he founded the Spen cerlan commercial collea colac ga in 1852 illness forced him to close it two years later in assisted by his sons he revised the system and produced a new series of copybooks printed by rhonney company buffalo they were transferred in 1869 to the house of ivison blakeman taylor company new york this modest cop copybook book became a best seller in the days when best sellers were few and called by a I 1 different name during more than a million coples copies were sold 9 keep the top of the pen penholder holder pointing to the right shoulder 10 keep the arms and paper in line KEY TO CORRECT POSITION a sit upright b sit squire square to the desk facing it c sit close to the desk without touching it d rest both forearms on the desk just forward of 0 the elbows e rest the right hand on the under corner of the little finger nail at 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 lie ile traveled about the united states teaching and lecturing finally the man who had failed boget into college as a student because he drank accepted a call to eclectic institute at hiram ohio today hiram college as professor of penmanship while he was there a poorly clad self taught farm lad came to the college as a student he supported himself by ringing the college bell and sweeping out the buildings he studied under spencer and later in life wrote a let I 1 V L PLATT R SPENCER ter to one of spencers sons praising his father the letter was signed jm 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 busier haunts of men where each days doings on lifes active stage arrayed in light shall crown the well writ page when spencers wife died in after a long illness tile the master penman beeme seemed d to lose heart and began to age rapidly in the geneva public library first called the spencer men memorial library is a faded nourish flourish 11 on a bit of yellowed paper pe r which bears the lite life Is line and may it be well ell ferrod tor for rod connected tasteful tree free arid and many a happy year be thine ere death shall close thy MY perfect line death closed spencers well formed line on slay may 16 1864 bustness business colleges throughout the country d raped draped the portrait of their master in black and former students of his wrote encomiums on his career and his c character liar acter in their best Spen cerlan hand today by the side of a road near geneva stands a modest granite boulder it bears a bronze tablet which abich tells the passerby passer by that one mile north of th the boulder once stood one of americas first writing schools the cradle of her system of penmanship within its crude walls wall platt it spencer conducted surn summer institutes from to 1803 expounding the he beauties of ills his system the to teachers coming from all parts of t the lie country not kot far uway away is evergreen E ver cemetery in it stands a large monument bearing a large familiar script over a quill under the names of platt it 11 spencer and persis duty spencer is this inscription their lives were kindly earnest and beneficent that epitaph might well wel have boon been a copybook cop book maxim for later generations of americans america ns to write in a fine Spon cerlan hand ad western newspaper union |