Handwriting: Past, Present and Future

Rather than go back to the beginnings of handwriting, I prefer to think of my own school days in the fifties. Learning to write on chalk boards was one of the most looked forward to times of the day. I loved moving that piece of chalk to make letters which, once I graduated to pencil and paper, I eventually began to string together as words. As the years passed by I was introduced to cursive writing and all the loops and joins became quite a challenge.

However, I persevered and eventually had a nib pen. For those of you not as old as I am, this was a shaped wooden or plastic pen with a nib on the end that you dipped into the ink well. Oh the ink blots you could make with a nib pen and blotter! It was a long time before my teachers deemed my neatness and lack of ink blots had progressed enough to allow me to graduate to using a fountain pen. The introduction of ball point pens or biros seemed like an amazing invention, although they certainly didn’t make my handwriting any neater.

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Some older readers may remember having to write the sentence, ‘A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.’ How clever, we thought, that one sentence could contain all the letters of the alphabet. This was the sentence usually required when we did a handwriting sample to be judged on for our school reports.

As I got older I delighted in reading about and viewing examples of the magnificent handwriting of earlier times. Go to any local museum today and you will see examples of how important handwriting once was. People wrote letters and journals in a beautiful style with ease. Children practised in copy books until they reached perfection. Even store keepers and business men recorded the days takings with a flourish. Stylish handwriting was definitely in vogue.

Sadly, this is not the case today. There is no longer an emphasis on handwriting as children get older. Many adults know only how to write in a print script, rather than the old fashioned cursive style. Emphasis is more on speed, with quantity far out weighing quality in importance.

Young adults do not see the need to be tidy handwriters as they seldom have to write by hand. The computer has taken over. I confess I write more at the computer than with pen and paper these days. People have the attitude that handwriting doesn’t matter, as not only can they write on the computer, but it enables them to correct their spelling and grammar errors as well.

The future of the art and skill of handwriting seems to be in danger. People send e-mails or text messages rather than write a letter. Notes are written and stored more easily on a computer than in a folder or book. Using technology, writers are not restricted to the style of writing they learn at school, as I once was. There are hundreds of fonts to choose from when you want variation in your writing style.

Some of you will argue that handwriting is no longer significant in this technological age. Others will look back longingly to the days when even the untidiest person could produce a page of writing that could be read. Are we in danger of forgetting how to write by hand. In the future will the marks on the page look less sophisticated and more like those made on slabs of rock back in the dark ages?

Hopefully the art of handwriting will not be lost forever.

Other articles about writing:

Writing Letters to Penfriends

Motivating Boys to Write