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the letters were all ten-point of the various faces; and the figures represent the distance in centimeters at which the letters were recognized. There is a satisfaction in being assured that the range between the best and the worst is not so great as had been estimated previously, the proportion being in the one case not quite 3:2 and in the other not quite 3:1.5. The following twenty-six widely different faces of type were studied: American Typewriter Bold Antique Bulfinch Caslon Oldstyle No. 540 Century Oldstyle Century Oldstyle, Bold Century Expanded Cheltenham Oldstyle Cheltenham Bold Cheltenham Bold, Condensed Cheltenham Italic Cheltenham Wide Clearface Clearface Italic Clearface Bold Clearface Bold Italic Cushing No. 2 Cushing Oldstyle No. 2 Cushing Monotone Della Robbia DeVinne No. 2 DeVinne No. 2, Italic Franklin Gothic Jenson Oldstyle No. 2 News Gothic Ronaldson Oldstyle No. 551 Of these, omitting the boldface and italic types, as well as all capitals, the six best text types, ranging in average distance of recognition from 236.4 to 224.3, are News Gothic, Bulfinch, Clearface, Century Oldstyle, Century Expanded, and Cheltenham Wide. The six worst, ranging from 206.4 to 185.6, are Cheltenham Oldstyle, DeVinne No. 2, American Typewriter, Caslon Oldstyle, Cushing Monotone, and Cushing No. 2. The author says, commenting on these findings: If legibility is to be our sole criterion of excellence of typeface, News Gothic must be regarded as our nearest approximation to an ideal face, in so far as the present investigation is able to decide this question. The esthetic factor must always be taken into account, however, here as elsewhere. And the reader who prefers the appearance of Cushing Oldstyle or a Century face may gratify his esthetic demands without any considerable sacrifice of legibility. To what extent these conclusions may be modified by future experiments it is, of course, impossible to predict, but they clearly point the way towards definiteness and boldness in the design of types as well as to a preference for the larger sizes in their use. All this, as we shall see in the next chapter, is in harmony with what experience has been gradually confirming in the practice of the last generation. TYPES AND EYES: PROGRESS The late John Bartlett, whose "Familiar Quotations" have encircle
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