A stylus may be made of a piece of soft wood whittled down at oneend This is made smooth and round with fine sandpaper until it is like— the unsharpened end of a lead-pencil or smaller, having a flat circular end For writing it is dipped into the unk and held in a vertical position. The lines drawn with this stylus in any direction will be of the same width: AB ABC HOW TO MAKE A LETTERING STYLUS. faint, and there should be two of them for every row of letters-one for the bottom line and one for the top line when you are writing a line that is all capitals. When you are lettering a line that is part capitals and part small letters, the small letters rest on the lower line of the ruling for capitals, but there is no line for the tops of the small letters (such as n, m, c, x). The small b, h, l, and the other letters that have ascenders, run to the top line;' that is, they are just as tall as the capitals. The small p, q, y, and the other letters that have descenders, run below the line a space the height of the small o, but there should not be any line to indicate this distance. 3. If you can get the India drawing ink (not the waterproof kind), you will find it much better than common ink. 4. You should practice a great deal before attempting to letter anything that you are going to keep or exhibit. Be sure that your letters are packed tightly together into words, and that they are evenly spaced in the words. When you are writing capital letters, the space between words is about the width of the letter O; and when you are writing small letters, the space between words is about the width of the letter o. 5. When you plan a piece of lettering you should arrange the words together in a rectangle or another mass of a very simple shape, so that it will be easy to read them. This mass of lettering should be surrounded by a margin on all sides. The lower margin may be a little wider than the upper and side margins. The cut on page 18 will show you how a Christmas card may be planned. Do not spoil the appearance of a letter by trying to correct it or to "touch it up" after it has once been made. In the letters that are given as models all of the lines are of the same width. This makes them different from our printed type letters which have thick and thin lines, and also from the letters that were used in the written books before the invention of printing. Perhaps some day you will be able to find in the school library a book called Writing and Illuminating and Lettering, by Edward Johnston. In it you will see pictures of the pens with broad, flat ends instead of points, which were used by the old scribes, and which gave the thick and thin strokes to the letters. This book will tell you how to make and to use these pens, and many other things as well about fine lettering. In it there are also some reproductions of photographs taken from the old hand-written books. A PUPIL'S PARAGRAPH 19. The paragraph that appears in this section was written by a pupil in an elementary school, and it is printed as it was written except for the spelling, which has been corrected. Read it aloud, making full pauses only where periods appear, and you will see that the writer ended sentences where he should not have ended them, and that at one place he forgot to finish a sentence. After the oral reading rewrite the paragraph, being careful (a) to use periods only where sentences end, (b) to use capitals only where sentences begin, except in the case of the word I, (c) to finish the unfinished sentence, and (d) to correct any other mistakes you can find. The rewritten paragraphs should be compared and corrected in class. Do not make any corrections in the book, either here or elsewhere. "One day when I was riding my bicycle. I had on a pair of long trousers. I was going very fast when one of the legs of the trousers got caught in the gear, the thing which the chain is on. The leg of my trousers caught between the chain and the gear. The chain goes around the gear and is attached to a small round wheel in the back wheel of a bicycle. So with the aid of pedals. You can make the back wheel turn around. I kept a going but when I went to cross the road I saw an old woman coming the opposite way. And if it had not been for the coaster a thing which stops the back wheel from going round. This little piece of iron cost five dollars. It is a handy thing to have." CRITICISM OF THE PARAGRAPH 20. If this story had been more correctly written, do you think it would be good enough for your school paper? Has it enough in it to interest the whole class for a few minutes? Are you satisfied with it as an account of an incident? Answer the three questions that follow: a. What more might the writer have told about what he did and what he thought, and about what the old woman did and how she looked? b. The writer interrupts his narration with an explanation. Do you like the interruption? How would you have arranged the composition if you had written it? c. The writer tells the cost of the coaster brake. Do you think this was necessary? How would you have handled this matter if you had written the composition? COMPOSITION EXERCISE 21. Write a story of some adventure or experience that you have had, and try to write a better story than the one quoted in section 19. Choose any experience that you remember fully; perhaps you will choose a theme somewhat like one of the following: How I Took Care of the House and Stable when Father was Away How I kept House when Mother was Away My First Day in a New Town My First Visit to the City My First Baking Day The Story of a Ball Game My Troublesome Brother My Experience in Husking Corn Country Boys in the City A New Boy at School A New Girl at School One Rainy Day on the Farm |