Cursive Handwriting Is a Cultural Tradition Worth Preserving

In today’s society, people of all ages use e-mail and various forms of computer-aided messaging to communicate. The technology associated with this Computer Age has required adults and children alike to learn how to utilize various communication devices, to the exclusion of cursive writing. Ask your friends how long it has been since they’ve written a lengthy letter in cursive.

As a result, our society is quickly losing its ability to communicate via cursive writing. It is not taught, or rather it is not stressed, in American schools as it once was. We are becoming completely dependent on machines to communicate with others.

As an archivist, I see many beautiful letters that were written in cursive. However, many of those letters are at least 50 years old and the most beautifully handwritten letters are more than 100 years old. At one time in our history people took great pains to write a letter utilizing their best penmanship. In fact, a case could be made that some of the finer examples of cursive writing are actually a form of art.

We need to teach cursive to school children to preserve this history. E-mail messages are routinely deleted and not saved for posterity. Letters written in cursive tend to be saved and cherished. And let's be honest, receiving a letter written in cursive is much more meaningful than one that is computer-generated.

Cursive writing is a long-held cultural tradition in this country and should continue to be taught; not just for the sake of tradition, but also to preserve the history of our nation.

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