Is Cursive Writing Dead?

 Recently I read an article about a young woman who is making her living by helping people who were never taught cursive writing.  In particular, she helps them learn how to have a respectable signature!    

In 2010, Common Core removed the teaching of cursive writing from their standards for English language, arts and mathematics in grades 1 through 12.  While that decision was not mandatory, many states removed the teaching of cursive writing from their curriculums, causing some states to stop  teaching cursive.  It was not long, however, before teaching cursive began a comeback.  

Kansas is among those states: "The Kansas Department of Education believes that cursive handwriting as a student skill still holds an important place in the instructional practice of every school's curriculum and can be integrated in multiple content areas.  Research supports the role that handwriting instruction plays in the cognitive development of children and this activity is even more important in an increasingly digital environment.  The Board expects educators to insure that all students can write legibly in cursive and comprehend text written in this manner." 

What brought this reversal to my attention was the receipt of thank you notes from local 4th grade students who attended a program at Fort Hays State University that we helped support.  Most of those students were not comfortable writing cursive yet, but their neat printing was a pleasant surprise, as were the hand written thank you notes!  

One of the reasons given for continuing to teach cursive writing is that many of the treasured documents of our American history are written in cursive.  Researchers without training in reading and writing cursive would have lost the ability to read those documents without translation to print.  In addition, genealogy research, less likely to have been translated to text, would be difficult to read.

However, there are other benefits to teaching cursive writing, and by January of 2023, twenty-one states required cursive instruction.  Among the benefits of teaching cursive are:

1.  Cursive promotes a better understanding of words.  

2.  With cursive, the barrier between thought and action is minimal.

3.  Different neurological pathways open in the brain than what occurs with typing.

4.  Information is better retained when written in cursive.

5.  Cursive helps develop motor skills.

6.  Students using Cursive are more likely to retain proper spelling.

I was very disappointed when teaching cursive writing was dropped, but my objection had more to do with esthetics than anything else.  I observed that printed correspondence was unlikely to show much effort to make the correspondence attractive.  Thank you notes are always appreciated, but those thank you notes received during the time teaching cursive was neglected showed little attention to printing neatly or arranging the printing attractively on the page.  If the thank you notes received recently from the 4th graders are any example, writing neatly seems once again to be emphasized.  One of the students had already mastered an attractive cursive penmanship, but all of the students had made an effort to write neatly.  The thank you notes were a pleasant surprise, and we enjoyed sharing their appreciation for a day at FHSU, meeting illustrators and learning about how books are created!  

The Challenges of Keeping a Journal in Early Days

 

One of the followers of this blog commented on how seeing Isaac Werner's signature moved her, bringing him to life in a way that his transcribed words alone could not do.  I have shared in an earlier blog post  how special it was for me to receive the gift of a book in which Isaac had written his name.  Although I still long for the discovery of a photograph of Isaac, his signature remains almost as intimate.  

Of course, I spent months transcribing his 480 page journal, so I can certainly recognize his writing.  Early blogs have explored the significance of dropping cursive writing from the curriculum of public schools.  The art of a distinctive penmanship has been a mark of education and aesthetic appreciation for generations, and the abandonment of that discipline is regretted as disappointing by many of us. 

In past years I was often complimented for my style of printing.  Today, I am more likely to be complimented for my cursive script.  Either way, I believe how we write introduces us in a particular way.  Many graduates of the past decade no longer have been taught cursive, and even their training in printing is treated as only an adjunct to the "real" writing they will be doing electronically.  In short, writing by hand is not taught as particularly important, and it certainly is not considered an extension of the writer's personality, respectfulness, or education.

Transcribing Isaac's penmanship from his journal was challenging, not because his writing was careless but rather because of how densely he often wrote and because some of the lettering was of a style no longer used.

However, the biggest problem was the ink.  I suspect that living far from town without a horse may have caused Isaac to stretch his ink by adding water when he noticed the ink well getting low and he had no plans for a trip to town.  The paleness of the ink did not appear to be the result of fading through  exposure to sunlight.

In 2016, the Berk's History Center republished the April 12, 1946 article by Luke Sutliff titled "An Old Recipe for the Making of Ink.  The recipe was taken from a 1748 German Almanac.  "It often happens that if people in our country have something to write they will take gunpowder and water, and make ink, and write with it."  The author of the recipe complained that when the gunpowder and water ink dried, it not only smeared but could be wiped off the paper.

Instead, his recipe suggested "pulverize a piece of cherry tree gum the size of a bean, let it dissolve in as much water as half an egg shell can hold and add the [gun?] powder afterward for then the ink will not wipe out."  The author also suggested "gallnuts from oak trees in the late summer when they are ready to fall and are soft" with a recipe including vinegar, vitriol and gum added later.

The ink recipes sounded confusing to me, but the 1946 article had added an ink recipe from the 1943 World Book Encyclopedia, and I hoped it might be simpler.  It wasn't!  It involved a "pound of bruised nutgalls, one gallon boiling water, five and one-third ounces of sulphate of iron..., three ounces gum Arabic previously dissolved, and a few drops of antiseptic such as carbolic acid."  I failed to make it through the details of steeping and straining.

Not only do I now understand why Isaac would have preferred to buy his ink in town and water it a bit if he ran low before he anticipated another trip to town.  I am also grateful for my ball point pens!

Fountain Pens & Journals

Antique pen & pencil set

I recently received an advertisement from The Goulet Pen Company, and among their pens was a beautiful fountain pen with a deep green finish that reminded me of my father's pen.  I was never allowed to use his pen, nor was my mother, although she wrote beautifully in cursive.  It was his alone, and no one was allowed to injure the point and spoil his favorite writing instrument.

How many of us today own a fountain pen?  When I was younger, a nice pen and pencil set was still an appropriate graduation gift, and perhaps the sets I received as gifts were for one or more of my graduations.  Perhaps I even bought one of the sets when I graduated from law school, believing it would reflect dignity on a young lawyer to use a fountain pen to sign important documents.

I own my father's pen, a treasured object associated with memories of him at his desk, a Victorian desk first owned by his father and now owned by his lawyer grandson.  Many times I played nearby as he wrote checks for his farm business and for the church he served as secretary-treasurer for many years.  Those days imprinted on my mind the association of using a fountain pen for important documents, just as my mother's beautiful script imprinted the importance of beautiful penmanship.

Sadly, today I write with disposable pens and my cursive penmanship will never match my mother's script.  I remain convinced, however, that cursive writing and even the printing now taught in schools are an important reflection of the person.  Even if letters are rare, cards are still signed, and a personal note is appreciated.  Documents still require signatures.

Page from Isaac's journal 1871

In other blogs I have written about penmanship, and in doing research for those blogs I was shocked to learn that many younger people cannot read cursive writing and are unable to decipher treasured family documents.  That brings me to the subject of this blog, which is the penmanship of Isaac Werner.

When I found Isaac's journal and recognized what a valuable historic document it is, I decided to transcribe it.  That process, which also involved annotating it and researching all of the names mentioned in his journal, took 11 months.  Of course, far deeper research related to the contents of his 480-page journal has since expanded over a decade, but this week's blog is about his penmanship.

The early years reflect the confidence of a younger man, living in a small Illinois town where access to supplies was simple.  His script is strong, and the ink remains dark.  When he resumed his journal as a homesteader on the Kansas prairie, his script was tighter, seeming to hint at a thriftiness required of homesteaders, who wasted nothing.  Recycling was essential in a place where money was scarce and trips to town took all day, even though today they would be ten minutes away.  I suspect that Isaac may have watered his ink when he noticed that his ink well was getting low and he might run out before his next trip to town.

Page from Isaac's journal 1887

The pen set pictured in this blog was among family objects saved after our parents' deaths, and I do not know whose they were.  The two images of Isaac's penmanship show the bold script of his younger years in Illinois and the tiny, tighter script of his later years on the prairie.  The ink from the 1887 page is faint, and my assumption  is that Isaac had diluted it to avoid running out, since pages before and after are not faint and do not indicate a likelihood of a habit of leaving the journal exposed to sunlight that would have faded the ink.

I hope you enjoy this reflection of lost customs, as well as a peak at the interior of Isaac Werner's 480-page journal that I transcribed, which has become the heart of my manuscript about the history of the populist movement in Kansas.

Remember, you can enlarge the images by clicking on them.

Bibliomaniac vs. Collector?

Bibliomania - a disorder involving the collecting or hoarding of books to the point where social relations or health are damaged...characterized by the collecting of books which have no use to the collector nor any great intrinsic value to a more conventional book collector. 

Having just spent several days boxing up some of my precious books to be stored while we are remodeling, at least part of which construction is motivated by the need to have more bookcases for my books, I might seem to some people who read less seriously or who have converted to reading e-books to be a candidate for the above-defined disorder.  However, I do read the books I buy--or at least intend to read the books someday--and except for the fact that I save paperbacks whose contents are worthy, even if the yellowing pages and dog-eared books are not, my collection does have intrinsic value recognized by other serious bibliophiles.  I think I am still relatively sane in that regard!

Sample of Isaac's handwriting from his journal

I also believe that Isaac Werner acquired books worth collecting.  (See "Isaac's Library," blog archives 2-2-2012.)  His journal from his mid-20s describes how he planned space on his bookcase for future acquisitions, and he consulted a particular book and other publications for recommended reading.  He approached additions to his library very seriously.

Thanks to Marcia Brown, past director of the Pratt County Historical Museum, I now own a book from Isaac Werner's library!  Her sharp eye and amazing memory spotted three books in the recent deacquisition sale at the public library, and she bought them for me, delivering them to me the afternoon of the Filley Grand Opening (See "Arts Thrive on the Prairie," 7-3-2014), making that special day even more special for me! 

All three books bear the library's inventory bookplate reading: "Presented by Dix Collection," and the book titled Among My Books by James Russell Lowell, copyright 1870, bears the inscription "I.W. Werner, Rossville, Ills., May 29th, 1870," a date consistent with Isaac's years in Rossville as the proprietor of a drug store.  I assume that Dr. "Doc" Dix, a close friend of Isaac, may have bought these three books at Isaac's Estate Sale following his death.  Isaac's probate records document the sale of many titles from his library with the name of the purchasers; however, there were so many books in his collection that a large portion of his library was boxed and sold in lots, without the specific listing of titles contained in each box. 

All three books bear copyright dates prior to or during the years Isaac lived in Rossville, when he was doing his most active collecting (having more disposable income as a young druggist than he had later as a struggling farmer on the prairie).  One of the books is McGuffey's New Juvenile Speaker:  Containing more than Two Hundred Exercises for Reading and Speaking, published in 1860, at a time when Isaac was still a student in Wernersville, PA.  Isaac mentions in his journal referring to books on grammar and elocution in his library, which also supports the possibility that this particular book could have been owned by Isaac when he was a young scholar.

The third book is Recent British Philosophy, by David Mason.  There are penciled notations in the margins

A margin note from Philosophy book

on several pages, as well as at the back cover.  I have examined samples of Isaac's handwriting to compare with the margin notes in this book, and many of the letters appear very similar to the style of Isaac's penmanship.  However much I would like to be certain that this book did belong to Isaac and the margin notes are his, I cannot be sure.  You may make your own comparison from the journal sample above and from the sample of Isaac's signature at the opening of last week's blog.  (See "What's in a Name?" archives 7-3-2014.)  

As I shared in earlier blogs, prior to beginning to write the manuscript about Isaac and his community, I bought several books that I knew from his journal that he owned, and I attempted to buy the editions near the time of his acquisitions of the books.  I wanted to see what Isaac was reading in order to understand more closely who he was, and it was obvious to me that Isaac's education did not end with his formal schooling.  His curious mind explored history, art, literature, medicine, and other serious subjects.

In the Commencement Address I delivered this past spring, I told the graduates, "Learning doesn't stop when you leave school, and if each of us isn't learning something new every day, we just aren't trying."   Isaac obviously agreed.  (See "School & Community, Then & Now," blog archives 5-21-2014.)

I suspect there are still Isaac's books to be found on book shelves in his old community, and thanks to Marcia Brown I definitely own one of Isaac's books.  If you have some dusty old books on your shelves that were published in the late 1800s, check to see if Isaac's signature is inside.  I know there must be more of his library to be discovered!

Isaac's Penmanship Revisited

Isaac's penmanship

It came as a surprise to me that my blog "Isaac's Penmanship" has proved to be one of the most often visited, even months after it was first published.  (See 5-2-2012)  I suspect its popularity may have to do with people searching for reference material to use in teaching themselves or younger people the art of cursive, now that many schools are abandoning classroom instruction. 

 

At the time I wrote the original blog, I knew that a movement to make the teaching of cursive optional was underway, and the May 2, 2012 blog discusses that movement and the pros and cons of teaching cursive as part of the standard curriculum.  As with other fading traditions, the disappearance of cursive has been so gradual that many people did not realize what was happening.  In a recent article by Julie Carr Smyth for the Associated Press, she wrote that the new Common Core educational standards have dropped penmanship classes, citing the state leaders who developed those standards as stressing "the increasing need for children in a digital-heavy age to master computer keyboarding."  An assistant professor of K-12 policy at the University of Southern California was quoted as saying, "...it's much more likely that keyboarding will help students succeed in careers and in school than it is that cursive will" 

 

According to Smyth's article, at least 7 states that have adopted Common Core have chosen to retain the teaching of cursive.  These advocates cite studies on brain science and the value to future scholars of knowing cursive to interpret a range of cultural materials, such as historical documents, ancestors' letters and journals, and handwritten notes by historical figures and scholars.  (See "Isaac's Penmanship" blog for additional discussion.)

 

Michael Sull

 

Consulting an old magazine article I had torn from the Nov/Dec 1996 issue of Country Home titled "Letter Perfect," I was reintroduced to a man known today as the leading authority on Spencerian script and as America's foremost living Spencerian penman.  In that article from nearly two decades ago, Michael Sull said of his decision to teach Spencerian script to others, "If I had taken this gift and decided to do nothing with it, I would have been falling down on some sort of moral responsibility.  I had a chance to preserve and extend part of our heritage. 

 

 Sull has indeed preserved and extended that heritage, as both the author of books and the calligrapher for Ronald Reagan after his Presidency.  The route Sull took to reach his esteemed position began with a degree in forestry from Syracuse University, followed by enlistment in the US Navy.  Only then did he pursue his interest in calligraphy, founding a calligraphy guild, working as a calligrapher and lettering artist at Hallmark, and starting his own ornamental penmanship company.  Like Isaac, Sull made his home in Kansas.  You can visit his face book page at Michael Sull or read more about him at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Sull where I found this recent photograph.

 

Of course, one of the reasons our ancestors polished their penmanship was to present themselves favorably in their letters, whether personal or business.  Author Simon Garfield, a British journalist, writes in his recent book, A Celebration of the Lost Art of Letter Writing, "A world without letters would surely be a world without oxygen," calling the distinction between an e-mail and a letter the difference between "a poke" and "a caress."  Yet, Garfield also predicts that the last letter will appear in our lifetimes.



Penmanship of beloved teacher Ralph Bisel

Recently, I bought several sheets of stamps, acknowledging to the postmistress that I had begun collecting as a way to share a common interest with my mother-in-law.  I admitted that with her passing, I should probably terminate my collecting, adding:  "I guess the stamps will always have the value of using them for postage."  The expression on the face of the much younger postmistress did not offer much assurance of the truth of my assumption. 

 



Penmanship of my parents from my grade card



Smyth's newspaper article cited USPS figures that 1st class mail fell in 2010 to its lowest level in a quarter-century, adding statistics that 95% of teens use the internet, with a rapidly growing number using their smart-phones to go online.  A 2012 Pew report found a rise among teenagers in text messaging from 50 a day in 2009 to 60 a day in 2011.   I would predict that the drift away from 1st class mail has only increased since those statistics were compiled.

Make your own generational handwriting comparisons, as I did with my parents and a special teacher, including the penmanship samples of yourself and your children.  What do you think you will find?  Will anyone write cursive as neatly as my teacher and parents did in the 1950s?

 

As you know from my earlier blog, Isaac continued to study Spencerian script as an adult, believing that proper penmanship was the sign of an educated man.  His neighbors respected Isaac's knowledge of contracts, grammar, and penmanship enough to turn to him frequently to write their agreements, and he was elected Secretary of most organizations he joined.  Has the time for such traditional skills passed?  Are we content with e-mails and text messages, or the occasional greeting card bearing only a signature? 



Here is a novel idea for your New Year's Resolution:  Consider digging to the bottom of that desk drawer for the old note cards you bought years ago or for the stationery someone gave you as a gift which you have never opened.  What a surprise for a close friend or special relative if you took the time to write a personal note wishing them a Happy New Year!  Or,...you could just forward them the link to this blog to say that you thought of them when you read my suggestion!   ;-)

New blogs will continue in 2014.  Until then, I hope the past year has brought you pleasures to savor and comfort for your sadness.  I hope you look forward to the New Year with eager anticipation, and may the coming months bring you joys you had not imagined!

Michael Sull's self-study penmanship workbook









Isaac's Penmanship

With his usual eagerness for self-improvement, Isaac noted the following purchase in his journal:  "During P.M. looked over my catalogues to find some standard Work on Penmanship, feeling the want of such a work for occasional reference for some time, and just concluded to send for Spencerian's Compendium."  Actually, Isaac's handwriting is fairly neat and the difficulty in transcribing his Journal resulted more from his dense crowding of words and fading ink on some pages (suspected to be caused by his watering ink when the supply was running low), rather than from his handwriting.  In 1870, when he ordered the Spencerian handbook, he wrote with the flourish of a young man, expressing both in style and content the confident attitude of youth.  When he resumed writing in the journal in 1884, he was more thrifty of his opinions and materials, writing in sentence fragments, with little philosophizing and a smaller, closer script.

Spencerian script was developed by Platt Rogers Spencer in 1840, but it was his sons who published his previously unpublished writing guide after their father's death in 1864, and through their publication the Spencerian style of writing gained great popularity through about the 1920s.  When Coca-Cola created their logo in the late 19th century, they used Spencerian script. 

My handwriting over a drill from handbook.

  My own handwriting is often remarked upon, most often by clerks in stores when I am writing a check--even when I am signing those awkward electronic screens after swiping my credit card.  I have my mother to thank for my penmanship.  One summer when I was about ten, Mother decided that my cursive writing was unsatisfactory and set aside time every day for me to practice using my entire arm and shoulder, rather than  only my fingers.  I was required to make row after row of uniform loops across the page, and if she caught me drawing the loops with my fingers, the practice time was extended.  She had no name for what she was teaching me, but I believe it was the Palmer Method.

In 1894 Austin Palmer published a book titled, Palmer's Guide to Business Writing.  His idea was that using the muscles of the arm rather than the fingers, and simplifying the letters, reduced both the labor and the time it took for writing and allowed someone writing by hand to compete with the speed and clarity of the typewriter.  Gradually the Palmer Method replaced Spencerian script.  The drill above is from Palmer's handbook.

By the time I was in grade school, students were taught to print before they were taught cursive, which had apparently produced the block-like cursive that my mother found ungraceful.  For many years it was the practice to teach children entering school how to print (also call manuscript).  Then, about grade three, cursive writing was taught.  Over the years, certain styles predominated, but unless you were a teacher or the parent of a child in school during these changes, you were probably unawae of the shifting styles and teaching techniques.  The pictures below are from the Palmer Method textbook, when penmanship was a serious part of the curriculum.

In recent years a new debate has arisen.  A blog from 2007 asked:  "Cursive vs. Printing:  Is One Better Than the Other?"  The author pointed out that cursive is a better exercise for strengthening fine motor skills, and also that children who can read cursive can read manuscript writing but the reverse is not true.  On the other hand, first teaching print (manuscript) is comparable to the text in books and educational material.  Furthermore, cursive is less legible and harder to read, the proof of which is the line below the signature line on many forms which asks:  "Please print your name."  (www.blog.montessoriforeveryone.com)  An online debate from 2010 dealt not with what to teach but rather which to use, and responses were mixed.  A dialogue between two people leaving comments seems to reflect the younger point of view.  The first person wrote:  "I think in this day and age cursive is dying a slow painful death."  The second person replied:  "In an age where handwriting is going the way of the dinosaur, I would have to agree."  (www.sguforums.com)

Now, in case you haven't heard, many states are abandoning the teaching of cursive entirely or are leaving it to the discretion of teachers to determine whether there is time in the crowded mandatory curriculum to devote to cursive instruction.  The Theory is that classroom teaching of "keyboard skills" is more valuable in the electronic age.

I know my blog is being followed by current & former teachers, as well as students, parents, and grandparents.  This is the perfect post for those of you who have not yet left a comment to express your opinions about the abandonment of teaching cursive penmanship in schools.

In Isaac's time, penmanship was an indication of a person's education and sophistication.  There were still many who could neither read nor write and who signed documents with an "X".  The illustration of Isaac's penmanship is taken from the flyleaf of his journal, actually written before he ordered the Spencerian Handbook.

In my time I have regarded legible penmanship as a courtesy, enjoying a hand-written note of news, thanks, congratulations or concern, thoughtfully hand written by a friend, far more than a greeting card with only a signature.  Taking the time to write neatly, whatever the purpose, seemed as necessary to me as taking the time to fix my hair and put on lipstick before leaving the house.  Perhaps today's generation finds both of my "necessities" old-fashioned!

One individual responding to the question of cursive vs. manuscript wrote:  "Well-done cursive is really beautiful, and I think in the letter-writing culture of old, presentation was almost half of the pleasure of reading a letter."  I tend to agree, although I bristle a little at the characterization of that tradition belonging to the "culture of old."  Her comment received this reply:  "I found a box of letters a few months ago between my grandfather and his sister during WWII, and they were all so beautifully written.  Each one of them was like a small piece of artwork."  I would add that each was like a small piece of history.  Yet, if teaching is abandoned, will the cursive writing of ancestors become undecipherable to their descendants?

Two of my favorite museum memories are visits years ago to the manuscript rooms in the British Museum in London and the New York City Public Library.  Reading a handwritten letter of a witness to the beheading of Anne Boleyn, which described how Anne's little dog had run out from under its hiding place within the folds of her long skirts at the moment the ax fell, imprinted the horror of her execution in my mind in a very personal way far beyond what reading those same words in type could have done.  And, seeing the cross-throughs and interlinings on hand-written manuscripts of famous authors allowed insights that will be forever lost to future scholars and would-be writers viewing today's computer-written manuscripts, where changes are deleted forever.

Although most writers probably compose on computers, during an interview on CBS author Stephen King expressed the significance of writing in longhand:  "It slows you down.  It makes you think about each word as you write it, and it also gives you more of a chance so that you're able...the sentences compose themselves in your head.  It's like hearing music, only it's words.  But you see more ahead because you can't go as fast." 

An Op-Ed by Trevor Butterworth concludes, "...there is plenty of evidence that handwriting involves a series of complex cognitive processes in which perception and motor action are intertwined."  In reply to his conclusion, I would ask, when penmanship is abandoned in favor of keyboard skills, are educators neglecting the training of young people's minds in order to make them more productive at communicating ideas devoid of reflection, reason, and innovation?

 If Isaac had kept an electronic journal, would I have found it worth reading over a century later?  The picture to the left is of the top corner of page 422 of Isaac's Journal, typical of his handwriting a year before the journal ends.  Perhaps not beautiful, it is certainly neat, with a creative flair to it.  I believe that the words he wrote each day by hand speak to me more clearly than reading them on a computer screen ever could.  I also believe that his daily habit of writing in his journal allowed him to reflect more deeply and create more imaginatively than today's rapid tapping on a keypad.                                 

Take a minute to leave a comment telling me what you think!