Returning to a illiterate age

 This is a small thing, in the total scheme of things.  Forms of communication have been lost through all of human history.  Does anyone but the middle east scholar still remember how to read the impressions made on clay tablets?  Cuneiform tablets disappeared with the ancient Sumerians.  Or how about Egyptian hieroglyphs? It seems is cursive writing is going the way of the hieroglyphs.  Eric Utter has the report at the American Thinker today entitled Gen Z unable to comprehend cursive. They are also unable to make change or use a slide rule. When I found a fellow fountain pen enthusiast waitressing at a Red Lobster restaurant recently, I wanted to kiss her. Decorum and Mrs. PolyKahr's presence dissuaded me.

Sadly, it appears Generation Z (those born between 1997 and 2012) never learned to read -- or write -- in cursive.

From Deseret News:

...snip...

According to The Atlantic, this means, “In the future, cursive will have to be taught to scholars the way Elizabethan secretary hand or paleography is today.” This directly impacts archival work. Many written documents from the 19th century and other early time periods are written in cursive. While it was once taken for granted that American students would know how to read cursive, now that cannot be the case.

Archival work largely depends on a reader’s ability to read hard-to-read texts in shorthand and/or cursive. Will this mean that universities will start having to offer college courses in history programs on how to read cursive? Only time will tell.

Some educators say the advent of Common Core is largely to blame for Gen Z being unable to fathom cursive, but there is more to it than that. Cursive writing, like Calligraphy (though obviously to a lesser extent), requires much practice and patience, a focused and steady mind and hand… and a writing implement (instead of a keyboard or screen). These are all things in short supply today.

Back in the 15th century, business men in Italy needed to write down accurate descriptions of goods, services, and have a handle on profits and losses.  Printing, while legible, was too slow.  They developed what has become known as Italic cursive script, which is the joining of letters to speed up the process of writing. I myself prefer this form of cursive because it follows naturally from the printed letters to the cursive. It is also quite legible.  But I don't think that is the form Utter is concerned about.

What I suspect Utter is thinking about is Palmer Method. Palmer Method writing can be very beautiful and legible, but too often in the hands of students it became a series of unlegible swirls. But the purpose of writing is "express your personality" but to document something that someone else may need to read, even if it is something as simple as a grocery list.  Thus, legibility counts.

Reading the words of our Founders -- or of any who came before us -- beautifully written in longhand, brings us closer to them. The flowing words on a letter or manuscript, or from a diary, seem to reveal more of their character -- and the truth -- than is possible to glean from printout, screen, or audio book.

This is one more skill lost, one more link to our past cast coldly aside.

Do we really know what time it is? Some say the writing is on the wall… but some of us may no longer be able to read it.