1. A handprinted symbol recognition system comprising: means for obtaining topologic and geometric rugged features from a skeletonized raster scan line sample image representative of a single handprinted symbol; means for filtering said topologic and geometric features by testing against given parameters to eliminate said image when said image has no characteristic common to any symbol within a target subset of symbols; means using a feature selection/decision tree approach for tentatively identifying said handprinted symbol from said target subset corresponding to said image when said image is passed by said filtering means; and means for assuring that said handprinted symbol identified by said identifying means satisfies a sufficient class membership criterion by applying more specific features to said handprinted symbol; whereby identification accuracy is decoupled from efficiency.