Re: OT More pens (was Re: Phoneme winnowing continues)

Kendra wrote:

(moi)
.(In fairness, despite weekly
> drills,
> > neither my classmates nor I ended up with very legible handwriting
> either.)
> I'm curious though, what kind of drills did they make you do?
This was the old Parker Penmanship system-- it may have stemmed from the
Parker Pen Co., but I suspect it's older...Google reveals nothing. It seems
to have been the standard from at least mid-late 19th C. up to mid-20th; my
gdparents' and parents' generations had excellent handwriting, but the
tradition seems to have stopped  from about mid-20th on.  Where did we go
wrong??

 Every elem. schoolroom had the ideal forms of the letters, cap and small,
posted above the blackboard (another antique term) in the front of the room.
Ordinary schoolwork was done in pencil, but on penmanship day, after teacher
doled out the ink, and our points were firmly in their holders, we set to
work-- push-pulls, essentially  /|/|/|/|/|/|/| (connected) for line after
line, then loops, interlocking OOOOOOs-- everything had to be neatly within
the lines of the paper, you had to hold the pen just so, at just the right
angle etc. etc. (actually there was a reason for that-- you learned control
and a light touch; if you didn't, the point could snag in the poor-quality
paper......); then practice the letter forms, write words etc. etc. As an
additional complication, sometimes spelling tests were done in ink (points
off for crossing out!).

>Did you just
> have to copy things down perfectly or something?
That was the general idea. Properly executed, the system was really quite
attractive-- I remember a 4th grade teacher whom we all admired for her
perfect handwriting à la Parker.  I still remember a lot of it, but lord
knows, don't use it.......A still current example-- the script logo of Ford.
(That "F" was hard to do....but there was an alternate form that could be
done in a single stroke)

Amusing note re Schaeffer Pens:  They were, maybe still are, headquartered
in Davenport Iowa, on the Mississippi.  My father worked briefly for a
company headq. in Keokuk Ia, a ways down the river, whose founder was a man
of humble origins who'd done very well, and was I suppose quite wealthy and
elite by Keokuk standards.... Anyhow, he used to grouse about "those snooty
Schaeffer Pen people" who cruised up and down the river in their fancy power
boat and never stopped to say hello.

Reply