Left-handedness as an element in individuality becomes conspicuous in school procedure especially in writing, drawing, shop work, or any work where the hand is an important factor in the performance. It may become conspicuous in vocational endeavor, either as an asset or a handicap. In a few kinds of performance, such as baseball or tennis, left-handedness gives an advantage, all other things being equal. In most professional pursuits (with the possible exception of dentistry and surgery because of manufactured appliances) left-handedness is a matter of indifference. In work with machines left-handedness is likely to be a handicap, because machines are “right-handed.” Even scissors, eggbeaters, typewriters, and other common appliances of office and home are “right-handed.” Left-handedness as a handicap in the absence of rational consideration of it, is illustrated in an extreme fashion by the case of a young pickpocket, remanded for mental examination upon second offense. This boy was of average general intelligence, extremely left-handed, and a stammerer. He had left school as soon as the law allowed, with a record of chronic truancy behind him. He explained that he had always “hated school,” because the teachers tried to make him right-handed, and because he was so ashamed of his stammering. Obtaining his working papers, he had first tried factory work, but the machines were all right-handed. He had then taken “a job” as an office boy, but he had to abandon that because he could not adequately answer the telephone, or converse with those who questioned him. Being “fired,” he found a place as packer of china in a department store, but had a fight with a fellow worker, who mimicked him, and was dismissed. Soon thereafter, needing money, he saw an opportunity to abstract a purse from a convenient pocket, and did so. The success of this venture led to others like it, until he was apprehended and sent to the reformatory. Having served his time, he came out with this record added to his original difficulties, and drifted again into picking pockets. The history of this boy shows the adaptation to social environment of an organism struggling by trial and error methods, without rational guidance. A left-handed man can pick pockets as well as anyone else (perhaps better), and speech defect is here no hindrance, since perfect silence is observed in such pursuits. This boy might have had a very different career if school and society had given a different kind of consideration to his individuality. III. MIRROR WRITING A certain number of children, variously estimated, write backwards, beginning at the right of the page. This is called “mirror writing,” and is apparently a function of left-handedness. Baldwin’s description is succinct.