Penmanship

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One skill, the loss of which has been greatly lamented in recent years, is that of penmanship. Ironically, the general feeling in the late nineteenth century was also that students wrote poorly, a circumstance attributable to “delaying the beginning of systematic instruction in penmanship till the pupil has formed careless habits by too long use of the pencil.” In 1871, the Middleborough School Committee maintained simply, “we think more attention should be given to writing.”

“Writing” in the context of the nineteenth century meant penmanship. As late as 1920, Middleborough’s Supervisor of Penmanship, somewhat testily took umbrage at what he clearly sensed was an arbitrary distinction:

To state that PENMANSHIP is WRITING would seem like discrediting the intelligence of anyone who has attained the use of reason. Nevertheless PENMANSHIP is understood by some pupils to be a term used to describe the work done in one special recitation period of possibly fifteen minutes each day, while all written work is merely WRITING. Until pupils realize that these two terms are synonymous, and that the same care and intelligent practice should be taken in the preparation of all written work as that of the class devoted entirely to the study of penmanship, satisfactory results can not be obtained.

Children were taught first to write cursively, learning only later how to print. Printing was considered more cumbersome and time-consuming and so was not favored.

“A child begins to write immediately on entering school, at first with slate and pencil, soon with appear, while the third year finds him using pen and ink with regular copybooks. His writing now is quite commendable, for he has had already two years’ practice with slate and paper …." Some schools, apparently following the advice of Superintendent Morss in 1886 began writing with ink in the second grade, including “much practice with finger and arm movements.”

Morss’ successor, Superintendent Fitts concurred with the assessment that writing deserved greater attention and, as a result, a complete course in writing was set forth for the four primary grades, meeting with some initial success. “The children in the lowest Primary are at present capable of making a few letters remarkably well, for the time they have been in school, and can write their names in a very legible hand.”

Penmanship was instructed in the Green School and taught until 1895 by means of the popular Spencer method with its ornate flourishes and prescribed 52-degree slant. “The average results, however, were not satisfactory. The writing in many cases was poor. Illegible writing was too prevalent. The subject was difficult to teach and hard to learn. Besides, eminent medical authorities began to assure us that slanting writing produced deformity and imperfect vision.” Consequently during the 1890s, penmanship as an educational subject received renewed attention. Beginning in 1895 “a system of intermedial penmanship” was introduced into the local schools which sought to eliminate the floridness of Spencerian penmanship as well as the amount of time the Spencer method required.

In 1908, Superintendent Bates recommended the appointment of a Supervisor of Penmanship to oversee the subject throughout the towns schools. Previously, Supervisors of Music and Drawing had been successful in developing those areas and it was thought that a Supervisor of Penmanship would be able to raise the standards in that field as well. In 1911, William A. Harthorne was named to fill this role, and he met with the Green School teacher monthly in order to discuss the progress of the pupils and the direction of penmanship teaching at the school. The object of penmanship education at the time was to train students to write “a neat, swift, and creditable hand.” The following year (1912), the copy book, so long a staple of the training of penmanship, was abandoned in favor of a “course outlined by the supervisor [which was] followed under his direction.” Harthorne was a strong advocate of writing efficiently, and surprisingly announced in 1912 that “A person may write the vertical, the medial, the back hand, Spencerian or some other system, I care not what, but if he uses the arm movement, his efficiency is increased 2 or 3 times. This is our aim.” Of the two methods of writing – finger movement and arm movement – Middleborough’s supervisors like Harthorne would continually favor the latter. Harold C. Sears in 1923, also a proponent of arm movement methods of writing, stated somewhat pedantically in 1923: “in my reports of other years I have endeavored to show just what is meant by arm movement and its advantages over finger movement, and I will not repeat here those advantages except to say that they are obvious to all.”

In 1914, the nearly ubiquitous Palmer Method (an arm movement method) was finally adopted for use by the elementary classes under Louise H. Scott, the new Supervisor of Penmanship. “This method is meeting with excellent success and already 13 of the teaching force have been awarded diplomas [Palmer Teachers’ Certificates] by the Palmer Co. signifying their ability to teach their system of writing.”

While previously a metronome had occasionally been utilized in penmanship work in order to help students in their movement drills, music was also suggested as helping teach rhythm and correlating work in penmanship and music. Pupils were encouraged to practice their penmanship skills and those in the fourth grade or above were recognized by the Palmer Company for doing so. Following approval of the first 25 drills by the teacher and Supervisor of Penmanship, students could have them submitted to the Palmer Company’s Boston office. “If the work is up to their standard, the pupil is awarded a Palmer Button.” Similarly, the first 100 drills could be awarded a Palmer Progress Pin and satisfactory completion of all 172 drills resulted in the Pupil’s Final Certificate. Later, the Ayres Scale for the Measurement of Handwriting was introduced to aid students.

Scott’s successor as Supervisor of Penmanship, Raymond S. Dower, however, was less impressed with the results in the schools. “The actual written work [was] not of a very high standard when measured by the standard established by commercial educators.” Penmanship, perhaps, received a seemingly inordinate amount of attention, perhaps because, as Dower contended, “without exception, writing, correct writing, is the most difficult subject that a grade teacher has to teach”. Dower questioned whether parents expected “too much of teachers in the matter of penmanship” and maintained that “psychologists emphasize the fact that, by nature, the child is not old enough to learn to write rightly until about ten years of age.”

Suburban schools like the Green clearly struggled in teaching penmanship of an acceptable standard and it was not until 1923 that suburban school pupils received awards for the penmanship abilities. This latter fact, however, was a testament to the tenacity of suburban school teachers in elevating the quality of their pupils’ work. Little assistance was received from the Supervisor of Penmanship whose “only contact with the teacher of these schools is through the Teachers’ Institute held every term.”

To help guide students, in 1924 Blackboard Wall Charts were placed in a conspicuous location at the Green “where pupils may see at all times the perfect forms of all the capitals, small letter, and numerals.”

Each teacher has for her own guidance, a scientifically arranged list of the successive steps to be taken in teaching the subject of penmanship. This list is also posted where it may be referred to constantly by the teacher.

In addition, books containing stories illustrating the forms of letters have been obtained for use of the teacher so that she may make her work interesting for the pupils.

I have prepared, for the use of the theachers, an analysis of all the letters, showing not only the proper strokes used in making the letters, but also special drills and constructive criticism.

With the devotion of the Green School to grades 1 and 2 following 1929, the focus of penmanship studies was the proper formation of letters and development of a “free easy writing movement.”