with the
fine lines, the ideal being a proper balancing of whites and blacks in
each letter and group. The size of the type face, as we might expect, is
pronounced by the committee "the most important factor in the influence of
books upon vision"; it describes its recommended sizes in millimetres--a
refinement which, for the purposes of this article, need not be insisted
upon. Briefly, the sizes run from thirty-point, for seven-year-old
children, to ten-point or eleven-point, for persons more than twelve years
old. Except as an inference from this last recommendation, the committee,
of course, does not exceed its province by treating of type-sizes for
adults; yet it would seem that it considers ten-point as the smallest size
fit for anyone, however good his sight. This would bar much of our
existing reading matter.

A writer whose efforts in behalf of sane typography have had practical
results is Professor Koopman, librarian of Brown University, whose plea
has been addressed chiefly to printers. Professor Koopman dwells
particularly on the influence of short lines on legibility. The eye must
jump from the end of each line back to the beginning of the next, and this
jump is shorter and less fatiguing with the shorter line, though it must
be oftener performed. Owing largely to his demonstration, "The Printing
Art," a trade magazine published in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has changed
its make-up from a one-column to a two-column page. It should be noted,
however, that a uniform, standard length of line is even more to be
desired than a short one. When the eye has become accustomed to one length
for its linear leaps, these leaps can be performed with relative ease and
can be taken care of subconsciously. When the lengths vary capriciously
from one book, or magazine, to another, or even from one page to another,
as they so often do, the effort to get accustomed to the new length is
more tiring than we realize. Probably this factor, next to the size of
type, is most effective in tiring the middle-aged eye, and in keeping it
tired. The opinion may be ventured that the reason for our continued
toleration of the small type used in the daily newspapers is that their
columns are narrow, and still more, that these are everywhere of
practically uniform width.

The indifference of publishers to the important feature of the physical
make-up of books appears from the fact that in not a single case is it
included among the descriptive i