Things change

An opinion piece the Washington Post last week discussed the demise of penmanship instruction in schools. I think the writer, Margaret Webb Pressler, is correct in this: Good penmanship is important. Further, it's vital that schools teach it.

Indubitably, writing by hand helps children concentrate their thoughts. Just compare the average teenager's paper journal to another's MySpace blog and you'll know what I'm talking about. Kids, therefore, should be encouraged to write by hand often and legibly.

I differ with Pressler on the form of handwriting best taught in schools. To me, printing is a perfectly acceptable form of penmanship and the lapse of cursive is not the disaster this article and others make it out to be.

The argument that block printing is a ponderous form of handwriting is just plain wrong. My personal experience refutes this claim. Whenever I write in cursive, which I do occasionally for old times' sake, I find that my hand moves slower and I have a hard time keeping my writing in time with my thoughts. Printing, on the other hand, is quicker and easier for me. Granted, this may be due to long-term personal custom, but what does that matter? For me, printing is faster.

Like all art forms, the development of new writing tools and preferences won't make cursive disappear completely; it will remain within the purview of hand-writing enthusiasts, calligraphers, etc. As for society's supposed loss: the cursive form of Latin letters is not a particularly old form of writing. Even ancient Roman cursive, the so-called majuscule form, wasn't really cursive in the modern sense, with letters connected, but really was just a sloppy way of printing block capitals.

Cursive script, like that of Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, is beautiful, but its time as a functioning form has passed. It is consigned now to art, and to the work of artists.