Cursive

It is sad to report that at least one suburban public school district has chosen to replace time spent teaching cursive writing with time spent teaching children how to operate a computer keyboard. Do most in our society use the keyboard? Yes. Do more use the keyboard than a fine fountain pen? Without question. Do those who do put pen to paper print rather than use cursive? Almost without exception.

And to this I ask, so what? A school district only takes its curricular mandates from the shrill voice of the moment when it has given its soul in sycophantic subservience to the jackbooted tyranny of the pragmatic.

Yet when a school or school district dares, when a group of educators dares, when parents dare to pursue true education, the kind suggested in Plato's famous "Allegory of the Cave" in which a mind is led forth from darkness to light and not merely equipped to do a job, then children are educated in truth, goodness, and beauty. The last in the list is by no means the least, and every effort is made to instill in them not only an appreciation for all that is good and true in the graphic, musical, and performative arts, but also the ability for them to take their place beside other artists by developing their own artistic gifts.

Is cursive necessary to fill out a form or to post on a blog? Not at all. But does it add immeasurably to a poem or letter from a lover to a beloved, does it grace the note of thanks or sympathy, does it bring a touch of elegance amidst the quotidian pressures and stresses of life that erode the humane senses? It certainly can. Unfortunately, such simple grace will no longer be available to the children of this school district.