Calligraphy may be the cure for sloppy handwriting Now that calligraphy, the art of
formal handwriting, has become a popular hobby, enthusiasts are
sharpening their pens to improve the atrocious scrawling of the rest of
us. It will be a mighty task. In America, writing is the most neglected
of the three Rs. The basic problem is that the letter forms taught were not designed to
accomplish the necessary combination of legibility, speed and ease. At
the start, schools require five-and six-year-olds to construct an
alphabet out of circles and straight lines. Calligraphers say that it
is wrong to expect the resulting letters to resemble the modern
sans-serif type faces that the children are simultaneously learning to
read. Young hands can rarely produce the subtle but important nuances
of printed type. The so-called ball-and-stick method requires
exceptional motor coordination, and the effort spoils the handwriting
of many youngsters for life. Since drawing circles and lines is not really “writing,” third-graders
must be taught writing all over again. Schools switch to one of several
cursive systems based on the fanciful scripts taught elementary the
U.S. in the 18th and writing. centuries, in-the Spencerian style
vigorously promoted in the mid-1800s by Platt Rogers Spencer, a scribe
and teacher. All these cursive systems, of which the most familiar is
probably the variation devised by another teacher, Austin Palmer, are
full of accident-prone loops that only a 19th century copper engraver
could properly master. Teachers get as discouraged as students. The solution, calligraphers say, is a simplified version of italic, one
of the predominant handwriting styles of the Italian Renaissance. It
was developed by Ludovico degli Arrighi, a Vatican chancery scribe,
who in 1522 composed the first writing manual for popular use, La
Operina. Like much Western writing since antiquity, this simplified
italic is written with a broad-edged pen, yielding a pleasing
alternation of thick and thin lines, depending on the angle of the
stroke. It is also easy to write because it follows the natural
movement of the wrist. The writer need only obey the pen to create an
even rhythm and beautiful form. “We don't want to force fancy calligraphy on young children,” says Nan
Jay Barchowsky, 53, a Maryland writing teacher who is coordinating a
drive for handwriting reform, with the aid of 47 calligraphic
associations in 26 states. “We want to teach children an efficient
hand, one that is legible, fast and easy to write. For some scribes,
that isn't calligraphic enough. But most of us believe there is beauty
in simplicity.”
