Class in English Square Hand Writing, Perkins Institution

Nelson Coon

English class at the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind, South Boston. Seven students sit at a large wooden table with paper and writing instruments. A teacher looks over one students shoulder. A glass cabinet with books is on the left and there is a large window on the right. Information about square hand from the Reading and Writing section of the Perkins Museum website: At Perkins, students were taught to write using a very simple and inexpensive aid. In this method, the writer places a sheet of paper upon a pasteboard or metal guide with horizontal grooves. The paper is creased into the grooves, so they can easily be felt as they guide the hand across the paper. Each letter is produced within the grid formed by the grooves and the left finger. After the right hand draws the letter, the left forefinger covers it immediately when the pencil moves on to produce the next letter. A finger's width separates words. The writing produced by this method was called square-hand, because the letters had a square and angular look. This system was taught well into the 20th century, and Perkins' Howe Press still sells the grooved writing cards used to produce square-hand. McGinnity, B.L., Seymour-Ford, J. and Andries, K.J. (2004) Reading and Writing. Perkins History Museum, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA.