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Editorial: Long live art of penmanship
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Is penmanship becoming a lost art? In many states, it may very well be lost forever. A growing trend to eliminate cursive from elementary school curriculum or make it optional seems to be taking shape across the nation. In fact, 45 states plan to eliminate cursive handwriting with computer keyboarding proficiency as a requirement for completing elementary school under new national curriculum guidelines for English and math. Fortunately, Massachusetts, California and Georgia are among the states that have preserved cursive as a mandatory part of third-grade curriculum in adopting their national curriculum guidelines for 2014. It seems terribly shortsighted to eliminate the penmanship requirement. Why not teach students both keyboarding and cursive? Certainly, computer skills are important for young students to learn, but many students already have exposure to typing and electronic devices before they even get to third grade. Chances are, though, that none of them would know how to write in cursive. Why cheat them out of this valuable skill? Some educators -- and a growing number of students -- say that cursive is a waste of time these days. They ask why should students have to learn two different scripts, when one -- printing -- is sufficient? But the art of penmanship should not go the way of the Dodo bird. Proponents of teaching penmanship say that cursive helps students' brains, coordination and motor skills, and it connects them to the past. Many students these days apparently never write in cursive, shunning it for printing when they write. They even have trouble reading it since they see it as "a waste" of brain space. Such thinking is especially detrimental to understanding our past. Handwritten letters and primary documents are often important links to understanding local, national and world history, and even family histories. Think of the U.S. Constitution, letters from the Civil War, World War I, World War II, or even correspondence from parents and grandparents and earlier ancestors offering genealogy clues that these youngsters would miss. Imagine all the lost educational opportunities if cursive writing essentially became a foreign language to future generations. If students no longer learn cursive, we may lose a crucial connection to our past. While it's true that students ought to learn how to properly use technology, and they will almost certainly text and type much more frequently than they write in their lifetimes, it is unnecessary and potentially detrimental to sacrifice the art of penmanship in order to teach youngsters proper typing. Penmanship helps us understand and keep a valuable connection to our past. Let's hope that Massachusetts' commitment to preserving the art of old-fashioned writing lasts throughout the generations. 
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Today is Tuesday, May 21, the 141st day of 2013. There are 224 days left in the year.
1863 -- 150 years ago: On Monday the 11th inst. on Center Ridge in Mercer County,some citizens got out their cannon to celebrate the taking of Richmond. The gun wasoverloaded and burst. No one was injured, but one 30-pound piece went though thesecond story of a house.
1888 -- 125 years ago: The old folks concert at the Harper Theater last night to benefit St.Luke's Cottage Hospital, attracted a large audience.
1913 -- 100 years ago: Unless depredation by vandals in Rock Island parks is halted,special policemen will be assigned to night duty to protect the flowers and other property.
1938 -- 75 years ago: Station WHBF has received a special citation from Washington forits participation in Air Mail Week, which was observed this week throughout the nation.
1963 -- 50 years ago: A 10-year high in employment in the Quad-City area was reachedat the end of the last quarter, according to an industrial employment barometer releasedtoday.
1988 -- 25 years ago: Pee Wee teams will be able to play baseball and softball as usualon Diamond Three at Dorrance Park this summer, but after that, the ball field is doomed.County crews have put the diamond back in shape after heavy trucks marred the playingfield earlier this spring. Illinois Department of Transportation crews drove onto it to makeborings for the relocation of the junction of Illinois 84 and the Port Byron-Hillsdale road.
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