by Bob Randall
(Editor's Note: Ranger Bob is back with a bit of nostalgia on the fine art of penmanship and learning to write in a rural Missouri public school more than sixty years ago. Bob and I are three months apart in age, and I, too, went to a rural Missouri public school, but in a different part of the state. Some of my experiences in learning to write align with his, while others do not. (See the "comments" section at the end of this blog posting.) In the meantime, Bob and I would both be interested in hearing from others of our vintage about the processes and materials they used as they learned and mastered their writing skills. Thanks, Bob, for sharing your time, thoughts, and talent with The Ramble yet again! Pa Rock)
I've been watching too many tv shows based on 18th century plots where characters write letters with quill pens, dipping their "nibs" into an ink well every few words. Think of Benjamin Franklin signing the Declaration of Independence. Dip Ben, dip jam, dip in, dip Fra, dip nkl, dip in. Maybe you could stretch the ink out a little if the ending letters were sparsely inked. Never mind erasures.
I recall learning to write cursive with a dip pen, an elongated handle with a metal point, the point being basically flat with a vertical split to hold ink. It lacked the blade of a wing feather at the far end. With that now between my neurons, I picture the northeast classroom of the floor of the old Wheeling School. That's where I attended third grade in roughly 1955. Mrs. Stapleton was the teacher. Above the chalk boards that covered two adjacent walls were rectangular cards with examples of both capital and lower case cursive letters. Of course, they were organized in alphabetical order. We practiced our "penmanship" dipping our pens in an ink well, looking up at the letter cards, and then applying ink to the lines on our paper tablets.
Do you recall a similar scene? Why did we use dip pens instead of pencils? When did we stop using dip pens? The answer will come to us when one of you says you used those pens and someone who was one grade behind you says nope. I know that you can still buy those alphabet cards because I looked it up: less than twenty dollars on Walmart.com. You can even buy dip pens, but I don't know why. Google "why use a dip pen" and the answer isn't convincing. Is cursive writing being taught on a regular basis, or is it just the occasional teacher who is stuck in their own nostalgia? Do you confuse young postal carriers if you write an address in cursive? I expect that question to rankle a few postal service retirees. I'll be disappointed if I don't get a testy reply or two. Do you write in cursive, or print, or mix and match them? Do you simply use your thumbs on a keyboard and watch printed words show up on a monitor that corrects your spelling?
The Wheeling third grade class that year was split in two groups with separate rooms with different teachers. I wonder if those other kids know cursive. I know that one of the kids in the third grade that year only writes using printed letters. I don't recall for sure, but I'm going to say that he was in the other room and that they split us up into a smart group who could learn cursive writing and a dumb group who couldn't.
I think I'm getting cabin fever.
2 comments:
As mentioned in the forward to this posting, Bob an I are three months apart in age, with him being my elder. He grew up in a small town in northwest Missouri and I was in southwest Missouri. My first four years were in a 1-12 school in Goodman, Missouri, and I did grades 5-12 twenty miles south of there in Noel, Missouri. I graduated from high school in 1966 - 60 years ago this spring.
I don't remember exactly which grade I was in when I learned to write in cursive, but third grade with Miss Foley in Goodman sounds about right. Most years, especially in elementary school, we had old student desks with a hole in the upper right corner for an ink bottle, but I don't remember ever using it for that purpose.
I do not remember ever using a "dip pen" or even seeing one. I do remember using fountain pens a couple of times. I think we brought them from home and the teacher carried around a bottle of ink for us to fill our pens. I can also remember my parents having fountain pens and an ink bottle at home. I suspect that the teachers dreaded supplying us with ink, regardless of what writing instrument we were using.
I learned to write in cursive, but never very well. Today, when I am not writing at the keyboard, I use a ballpoint pen and write in what Ranger Bob referred to as "mix and match." My writing skill is somewhere between poor and atrocious.
Penmanship was certainly not stressed as much in school during my day than it was when my parents weree in school. They both had beautiful cursive handwriting which they maintained throughout their lives. I'm sure they were appalled by my scribbling.
Like Ranger Bob, I, too, would like to know if cursive writing is still being taught in schools, or has it all been replaced with printing, keyboards, acronyms, and emojis?
Pa Rock
Howl County Poor Farm
For those keeping track, I did spot the two errors in the next to the last paragraph of my previous comment, but cannot figure out how to correct them. I'm sure that's an age thing.
Post a Comment