In Praise of Cursive

A few years ago, historian Drew Gilpin Faust made an unsettling discovery while teaching a Civil War seminar at Harvard. A student praised a book for its reproductions of original nineteenth-century documents and casually mentioned that he could not read them. Neither could many of his classmates. The documents were written in English; the problem was cursive.

For most of human history, literacy included the ability to read handwriting. Letters, journals, ledgers, military dispatches, family records, and the founding documents of nations all flowed from pen to paper in script. Today, many highly educated young people can read Shakespeare more easily than a letter written by their own great-grandmother. We’ve lost something.

This is not an argument against technology. Every generation adopts new tools and discards old ones. Few of us pine for a quill pen. Yet cursive occupies a different category. It is not merely a technique, it is both bridge and delight.

Without it, portions of the past become inaccessible except through intermediaries. Historians, archivists, and specialists become translators for records that ordinary people once could have read themselves. Love letters tucked into attic boxes, old journals, even portions of America's founding story are becoming inaccessible even to the highest achieving academics.

It’s also personal. Handwriting carries traces of the writer. Not simply the words, but the person. A hurried note from a father. A carefully composed letter from a sweetheart. Marginalia scribbled into the pages of a beloved book. The slant, spacing, pressure, and rhythm reveal something that typed text rarely can. Handwriting often conveys presence.

John Hancock did not sign the Declaration of Independence with the intention of creating a corporate logo. He signed it as a public declaration of identity, conviction, and risk. A signature was not only administrative; it was personal. Today, most signatures resemble the readout from a malfunctioning seismograph.

Yes, there are practical reasons to teach cursive and it’s true that research overwhelmingly suggests connections between handwriting and both cognitive development and memory retention. But the strongest argument for cursive is neither historical nor scientific. It is experiential. Writing in cursive is enjoyable. The hand travels in loops and arcs. Thoughts seem to settle into a cadence and problems untangle themselves. This is a reason counselors use handwriting to recover lost memories.

A thought begins as something invisible. A memory, an idea, a hope, a regret. Then ink meets paper and the intangible acquires form. What existed only in the mind becomes something that can be held, folded, reread, and passed to another generation. It’s a type of transubstantiation: embedding the ethereal into the physical. 

Living well, includes writing with one’s hand. Living really well includes cursive. Give it a go. I write each morning and am currently scribing my own hand-written edition of the gospels. Take up your pen. Take your time. Let the pen wander a bit. Years from now, nobody will frame your text messages. They may keep that letter forever.