Ten days ago, Maria Novella De Luca and Stefano Bartezzaghi took up three pages of La Repubblica to reflect on the decline of handwriting. It’s now clear that our children, with computers and text messages, no longer know how to write by hand except in awkward capitals. One teacher, when interviewed, said they also make many spelling errors, but that’s a separate issue. Doctors know how to spell but write badly, and you can be an expert calligrapher and still not know how to spell accomodation.
I know children who attend good schools and have decent handwriting, but the articles I’m referring to mention fifty percent of children, and evidently I happen to know the other fifty percent. Curiously, the same thing applies to me in politics.
But the problem is that things began to go wrong long before the computer and the cell phone. My parents used to write with a slightly sloping hand, holding the paper at an angle, and their letters were minor works of art, at least by today’s standards. It’s very true that there was a general belief, probably promoted by those who wrote badly, that fine calligraphy was the art of simpletons, and it’s clear that having a fine hand isn’t necessarily a sign of great intelligence. Nevertheless, it was nice to read a note or document written as God used to intend.
My generation was taught to write neatly, and during our first months at elementary school we had to form our letters on rows of vertical sticks, an exercise that was later regarded as dull and repressive, though it taught us to keep our wrists firm in forming loops that were plump and round on one side and fine on the other, using delicate nibs manufactured by Perry & Co. But not always, since the pen often came out of the inkwell caked in a sticky goo that messed up our desks, exercise books, fingers, clothing—and took ages to clean up.
The problem began after World War II with the advent of the ballpoint pen. It’s true that the first ones also made a great deal of mess, and the writing would smudge if you ran your finger over the last words you’d written, but there wasn’t the same urge to write neatly. Even when it wrote cleanly, a ballpoint pen didn’t have the same feel, style, or personality as the nib pen.
Why should we mourn the loss of fine calligraphy? Writing well and fast on a keyboard encourages swiftness of thought; the automatic spell checker generally, though not always, underlines errors; and using the cell phone encourages younger generations to write “HAND” instead of “have a nice day.” Let’s not forget that our forefathers would have been appalled to see us write “bus” instead of “omnibus,” or “best” instead of “yours sincerely,” and Cicero would have turned pale if he’d known that medieval theologians would one day write “respondeo dicendum quod.”
The art of calligraphy, it is said, teaches hand control and coordination between wrist and brain. Writing by hand means that each phrase has to be formed in the mind before it is written down, but in any event, handwriting, with the resistance of pen and paper, requires a slowing down of thought. Many writers, even when accustomed to writing with a computer, know that sometimes they’d prefer to carve like the Sumerians on a tablet of clay so as to think in peace.
Children will write more and more on their computers and cell phones. Yet those pursuits that civilization no longer sees as necessities are being rediscovered by humanity as sporting exercises and aesthetic pleasures. People don’t need to get around by horse, but they still go to riding school; aircraft now exist, but many enjoy sailing like Phoenicians of three thousand years ago; there are tunnels and railways, but people still find pleasure clambering over alpine passes; in the age of email there are still collectors of postage stamps; people go to war with Kalashnikovs but enjoy the peaceful pursuit of fencing.
It would be a good thing for parents to send children to schools that teach fine calligraphy, and not only for them to learn something beautiful but also to advance their fine motor skills. Such schools exist—just search “calligraphy classes” on the Internet. And it’s a skill that might provide good opportunities for someone without a steady job.
2009