TAMBLYN, WHOSE WRITING TOLD HISTORY; RANSOM'S GENEROSITY; BEDINGER9S SENSI­TIVE INDEPENDENCE AND SELF RELIANCE; THE OKLAHOMA BANKER; TWO GREAT PRO­FESSIONALS WERE NOT ALIKE; THE PROFES­SIONAL EGOTIST.

In the early days of grapho analysis one of the most interesting argu­ments against it was based on the idea that when a youngster learned muscular movement in school his handwriting pattern was set for life. School children learned to make their ovals and push and pull exercises in order to earn a Palmer Proficiency Certificate, or a Zaner & Bloser certifi­cate of penmanship skill, and a great many people believed that those school days settled the matter. It did not. The handwriting of the best profes­sionals proved it. You can see it for yourself when you examine the plates in this chapter.

The first is the handwriting of F. W. Tamblyn, a man whose adver­tising was carried for years in various magazines. F. W. Tamblyn began teaching penmanship by mail early in the century. He began his school while he was teaching for the old Brown's Business College in Kansas City, but as his student body grew, he established the Tamblyn School of Pen­manship. Plate 115 is a reproduction of a copybook specimen from his textbook, that was provided home study customers as well as to pupils in schools where the Tamblyn system of penmanship was taught. Study this carefully, especially the way in which the "n's" and "m's" are retraced. Next, compare the Tamblyn plate with the larger specimen of the writing of Platt R. Spencer (plate 116), one of the first experts in America. Where the Tamblyn writing retraces the "m's" and "n's", the Spencer writing divides at the base line, making a clear though narrow "v" between the sections of the letters. This is just one difference, and it is important.

Plate 115. Handwriting of professional penman F. W. famblyn who learned to appreciate grapho analysis.

It was inevitable that Tamblyn and I should meet, but we were never close friends. In the first place, I had studied handwriting with Charles Ransom and Tamblyn told me once that Ransom had not told him the truth, all of which is another story.

Tamblyn did not believe in grapho analysis. He would smile and say nothing when the subject was brought up even indirectly in our visits, until one day it seemed to me that his Doubting Thomas attitude had gone far enough. Up to that time I had never voluntarily examined his hand­writing. You will find, as I have, that after you have been using the prin­ciples in this book until they are familiar to you, you will be able to read pages upon pages of writing without looking for the grapho analysis values except when you want to know about the writer's character and personality.

When Tamblyn handed me the specimen which he wrote at his desk, it was clear why he had been skeptical about analyzing handwriting. His well-rounded "m" and "n" curves, even the well-rounded first part of his "s's", all showed that he had to take time to think out a decision. As we covered the various points, including his lack of enthusiasm in the short cross-bars of the "t's", his strong sense of spiritual and philosophical matters revealed by his upper loops, his face relaxed, and he settled back in his chair.

Plate 116. Beautiful penmanship of Platt R. Spencer, one of the early writing experts in America. The beauty of the writing has nothing to do with the character and personality traits revealed.

Finally, I came to his conservatism shown by the broad curves of his three letters. Then he chuckled. "You mean I'm just plain tight", he said. There was just one answer to make, "y°u are ultra conservative". After that Tamblyn was satisfied that grapho analysis was not a racket, and on one or two occasions before he retired he called on me to make examinations of employees in his school. Indeed one young man who was a skillful pen­man was let out because of certain traits shown ;n his professional pen­manship.

Plate 117. After 20 years the writer's personality had changed and it showed up, inevitably, in his handwriting.

Plate 115 of the Tamblyn writing was prepared in 1923, but men change. As they change their handwriting changes too. In 1943 I looked over my own handwriting certificates, diplomas from great schools, and then at my own almost legible printing. Suddenly I knew I wanted a Tamblyn certificate. Also, I wanted to see if I could practice and bring back the old smooth flowing lines of my earlier penmanship teaching days. I prac­ticed several hours, and it seemed that it might be possible, so I wrote Mr. Tamblyn. Plate 117 is his reply. He was still conservative, but the man who had been "tight" had disappeared, and in his place you will find a great many very generous final strokes in this card.

As you change, no matter how legible or illegible your original hand­writing, you will find that your handwriting changes just as much. This is only natural. You think differently in order to change your character, and when you think differently you write differently.

Plate 118. Author's name written with flourishes by penman C. W. Ransom.

Tamblyn's writing was plain rather than oranmental, whereas Ransom's was much looser with strokes well spread one from another. Where Tamblyn made modest flourishes, Ransom made showy ones. There was ho reason for the two men to be close friends, either professionally or otherwise because they were so much different that their interests could never meet.

Compare the writing of Bedinger with either of the others and you will find a distinctly different stage of letter formation, and an equally different personality.

Plate 119. Professional penman Bedinger's writing is highly stylized but reveals his personality traits nevertheless.

Mr. Bedinger's large looped "d's" shows his sensitiveness, while the cross-bar for his "t's" showed great enthusiasm. Bedinger was like Ransom in that he was generous and willing to spend time or money easily. You will find one other interesting trait in his signature. His self-reliance.

Young D. E. Garter who was teaching penmanship in a business school when he was fifteen went on to be an Oklahoma banker. His handwriting remained fluent but it was different. Where Tamblyn, who had been a teacher, retraced his "m's" and "n's" because he was thrifty, Carter made a marked separation, and also his writing was very much smaller, showing concentration. Also, like Ransom, rather than his teacher, he put long finals on his words, revealing the same willingness to give to others—to share with them that started my research into why I put such finals on my own words, an investigation that led to the principles of grapho analysis.

Plate 120. Penmanship teacher D. E. Carter went on to become a banker. Read his handwriting to know why.

For a half century there were two principal publishers of penmanship manuals—Zaner & Bloser, and the A. N. Palmer Company. Both systems were widely used, literally millions of school children worked on the exer­cises that were prepared to guide their penmanship habits. There were striking similarities between the writing of the two authors. For example, each made long cross-bars for his "t's", indicating that at least some of their success was rooted in contagious enthusiasm about their work. Zaner's writing was smaller than that of A. N. Palmer, and a careful comparison will give you many minor differences. The point is that there were differ­ences, and these differences identified the two individual personalities that directed much of the penmanship skill that affected the last two or three generations.

Plate 121. The handwriting of one of the founders of Zaner & BloSer Publish­ing Company whose exercise books guided the penmanship habits of millions of school children back a few years ago.

Plate 122. Sample of the kind of writing approved by A. N. Palmer who admitted that each child's individual personality eventually showed through his handwriting no matter how he was taught.

Plate 123. The rococo writing style of F. F. Truitt who called himself "the world's best penman." Some of the gaudiness has been lost in reducing the size of this plate to fit this page.

There is one very important point in relation to their penmanship, however, that you should recognize. They were professional penmen, and made their living by adhering to what they taught, but their students, the boys and girls in grade and common school, and high school who used their manuals did not become proficient penmen. Further, even though the youngsters gained a certain amount of formation skill from their practice, they did not become good penmen. Not one in ten thousand stuck by what he had practiced in school. Indeed, this was so true that the director of the A. N. Palmer Company once told me that they did not expect the children to do so. "We try to help them cultivate a legible style of exe­cution, but after they are out of school, they begin to show their individual personalities, and their writing becomes the picture of the individual writer."

Even the best penmen revealed their differences from the normal or common letter formations. Take this plate written by F. F. Truitt, a pen­manship writer who was quite famous for a time. Indeed, Mr. Truitt pro­claimed himself the "world best penman" and you can see why he did it. This plate is filled with decoration, too much decoration, in fact. Such a display in the handwriting of a professional penman or any other writer, legible or otherwise, is always a certain sign of the show-off, the ostentatious person. You will find their homes or personal possessions chosen for display, and to attract attention. Truitt was a long way from being the world's best penmanship teacher or artist. But he simply had to claim it because he was built that way, and the feelings he had were expressed in the over-dressing of his handwriting.

Plate 124. During those days when ornate penmanship was the envy of every school boy, Madarasz, whose handwriting appears in this plate, was at the pinnacle of his fame. Notice the snap of his shading. He was equally famous as a teacher and his books of reproduced specimens are now in demand as collectors' items.

You will find a number of other plates in this chapter, merely as ex­pressions of the personalities and the difference in personality that identified one from another. Great penmanship is almost a matter of history. Here and there you will find someone who still does magnificent flourished birds, and writes an ornate or decorative hand in his own particular style, so that these plates will provide you with not only comparison material in order to apply your principles of grapho analysis, but represent a choice collection of some of the work of the great penmen who influenced our fathers and mothers and their fathers and mothers before them. They are worth study for they are some of the strongest proof any skeptic can have of the truth that skill does not lessen the individuality of the writing.

Plate 126. Each of these signatures is the work of a great penman of the early part of this century. The writing of each man identi­fies him just as surely as his fingerprints indentify him.

EXAMINATION FOR CHAPTER 11

(Correct answers for this examination will be found in the back of the book.)

In this chapter you have had striking proof that no matter how much a man may try to follow the path laid down by another, it is not possible. Most of the fine penmanship developed during the early part of the 20th Century stemmed from the influence of two men: Zaner and Palmer, yet they did not write alike, and none of their followers wrote like either their teachers or one another.

It is true that many of them gained an easy flowing hand, and ease of execution, but those who were conservative placed their letters close together and those who were less thrifty, spaced them further apart. They made small loops instead of large loops, or straight strokes where, according to the copybook, there should have been a loop.

Further, as you gain experience, as you come up .against the rough and tumble of daily life, you will develop traits that will change your hand­writing. So radically will your handwriting change in some cases, that a casual observer would say that your older writing could not have been executed by you. In exactly the same way, handwriting that showed strong character traits may not necessarily continue to do so. Some terrific emo­tional upheavel occurs in the life of some persons so that they become weaker rather than stronger.

Handwriting will show a change that is taking place before the actions of the writer show that change. Because this is true, a thorough knowledge of the rules may sometimes help you save a life. Not in the sense of keeping a man or woman from committing suicide, because there are no "death strokes" in a writing any more than there are strokes that show the writer will become rich. Such ideas are groundless, but when you see danger signs you can make suggestions that will help the writer overcome traits that for him might be disastrous.

EXAMINATION

1. . Does muscular movement penmanship materially change the permanent writing habits of the individual?

Yes No

2. . In the Tamblyn writing, what showed conservatism?

a.Rounded "m's" and "n's"

b.Carefully retraced downstrokes of "m's" and "n's"

3. . What character traits were prominent in the writing of Bedinger andRansom?

a.Thrift

b.Friendly emotional response

c.Generosity

d.Showmanship

4. . What traits of character are shown in Carter's writing that gave him natural ability to keep records and become an active business man?

a.Generosity

b.Showmanship

c.Concentration

d.Friendliness

5. . What trait did you find in one or more of these specimens that showed a desire to attract attention or showmanship?

a.Forward slant

b.Large writing

c.Flourished writing

d.Compact writing

6. . Check the names of the penmen whose writing showed the greatest desire for showmanship or to attract attention.

a. Tamblyn b. Spencer c. Ransom d. Truitt

e.Carter f. Bedinger g. Zaner h. Palmer

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