nd Pedagogy of
Reading," which appeared in that year. Such matters as the normal length
of a line of print, the size of type appropriate to schoolbooks for
children of different ages, the possibilities of future type design with
reference solely to the reader's needs, are among the many subjects
there set forth in an interesting fashion.

In all these studies one obvious subject of investigation appears to
have been overlooked, and that is the actual types of everyday print. Do
they vary greatly in legibility? Are some of them so bad that they ought
to be rejected _in toto_? On the other hand, have the designers of
certain types attained by instinct or by happy accident a degree of
legibility that approximates the best to be hoped for? If so, can we
trace the direction to be followed in seeking further improvement? To
answer these questions an extended investigation was undertaken at Clark
University in 1911 by Miss Barbara Elizabeth Roethlein under the
direction of Professor John Wallace Baird. Her results were published by
Clark University Library in January, 1912, under the title "The Relative
Legibility of Different Faces of Printing Types." The pamphlet abounds
in tables made clear by the use of the very types under consideration.
The following are the conclusions reached:

1. Certain faces of type are much more legible than other
faces; and certain letters of every face are much more
legible than other letters of the same face.

2. These differences in legibility prove to be greater when
letters are presented in isolation from one another than
when they are presented in groups.

3. Legibility is a product of six factors: (1) the form of
the letter; (2) the size of the letter; (3) the heaviness of
the face of the letter (the thickness of the lines which
constitute the letter); (4) the width of the white margin
which surrounds the letter; (5) the position of the letter
in the letter group; (6) the shape and size of the adjacent
letters. In our experiments the first factor seemed to be
less significant than any of the other five; that is, in the
type-faces which were employed in the present investigation
the form of any given letter of the alphabet usually varied
between such narrow limits as to constitute a relatively
insignificant factor in the determination of its legibility.

4. The relatively heavy-faced types pr