books
and specimens of writing from leading teachers of writing, students in
various grades of schools, clerks and business men.

America is so far in advance of any other country in artistic and
business penmanship that there is really no second. Americans as a
whole write at a much higher rate of speed and with a freer movement
than any other nations, and, consequently, many critics stop when they
have criticized form alone, not making allowance for quantity.
Nervous, rapid writers (and such the Americans are) produce writing
more or less illegible, but it is not the fault of the standard so
much as the speed with which the writing is done.

The writing of England is either angular (for rapid business style),
or the civil-service round-hand--too slow for the every-day rush of
business. England's colonies, influenced by her copy-books and
teachers, write about as England does. Canada is an exception, as her
proximity to the United States causes her to mix the English and
American styles, with the American gaining ground.

The German and French write two radically different styles. Hence the
identity of the nation producing the writer as well as the identity of
the writer himself usually can be established. Before the writer is
known this frequently is of great benefit to the cause of justice as
it narrows down the search.

A case such as the Dreyfus affair has a tendency to confuse the public
mind and leads to wrong conclusions. In initiating the prosecution of
Dreyfus the French government submitted the documents to expert
Gobert, of the Bank of France, who is considered the leader in this
line in France. Gobert reported that Dreyfus did not write the
incriminating documents. The prosecutors then placed the papers in the
hands of Bertillon, the inventor of the anthropometric system of
measurements (used principally on criminals) which bears his name. It
mattered not that Bertillon had never appeared in a handwriting case
before, or that his skill in this line was unknown. He was a man of
science, of great renown in other lines, and the government relied on
these facts to bolster up its claim that Dreyfus wrote the
incriminating papers Bertillon reported in favor of the government's
contention, and it was an easy matter to get some alleged
experts--weak as to will and ability--and one or two honest but
misguided men to agree with him. Some of these afterward changed their
opinions when better standards of writing