In recent years, some weeds seem to have sprung up to retard the growth of the more cultivated graphics which had been developing strongly with numerous offshoots since the World War stimulus. As in a garden where there is sometimes the policy of deciding in the early stages which are weeds and which are plants that will be productive, it has not been easy to find a method for defining good graphic charts as compared with poor or downright obnoxious charts. What is believed to be a satisfactory method was found in the old story of the blind men who reported on the characteristics of an elephant. Good graphic presentation should be susceptible to only one interpretation.

Recently even official government documents have been using a type of graphics which found its first major use in European countries having a low

PREFACE

percentage of literacy. When the same European methods have been pushed on a commerciaHzed basis in America, little attempt has been made to follow existing American standards or trends toward the development of an ultimate universal language. The tendency has been to use stock symbols over and over again because they are cheaper to reproduce than special drawings designed for each particular problem of presentation.

The first part of this book up through page 366 deals with "How to Read a Chart." The section from page 366 to page 452 treating the subject "How to Make a Chart," is necessarily condensed, and gives suggestions rather than detailed instructions.