{"id":3154,"date":"2015-10-01T11:51:57","date_gmt":"2015-10-01T15:51:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/?p=3154"},"modified":"2015-10-01T11:51:57","modified_gmt":"2015-10-01T15:51:57","slug":"penmanship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/penmanship\/","title":{"rendered":"Penmanship"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"WNS15ALM10_175l<\/a>\u201cBad orthography, bad penmanship, or bad grammar\u2014 bad habits in any of the rudiments\u2014 if they be not corrected in the preparatory school, will probably be carried through College and not unlikely extend themselves to other studies and pursuits; whereas the habit of doing every thing well, so far as he goes, will likewise follow the student as long as he lives, and give completeness to whatever he does.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

So wrote Samuel Williston, in his 1845 Constitution of Williston Seminary.<\/em>\u00a0 Surviving examples of Sam’s handwriting suggest a measure of hypocrisy where penmanship was concerned.\u00a0 In fairness, Sam had poor vision and hadn’t enjoyed the benefits of a Williston education.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
An especially egregious example of Samuel Williston’s handwriting: a log of charitable contributions from the 1840s. (Click all images to enlarge.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A course in penmanship was an option, sometimes a requirement, at Williston Seminary from the very beginning until late in the 19th century.\u00a0 There are suggestions that ducking out of it could have serious consequences.<\/p>\n

\"alvord<\/a>
Memorandum to Principal Marshall Henshaw, 1875. Henry Alvord taught drawing, penmanship, and gymnastics, and occasionally “commercial arithmetic” and surveying, 1873-1881. While the signature is Alvord’s, the text appears to have been written by someone else.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Archives have a few examples of penmanship workbooks.\u00a0 Instruction appears to have largely consisted of students being asked to write the same thing over and over again, in the hope that practice would eventually lead to success.\u00a0 Pupils also appear to have been encouraged to try different handwriting styles.<\/p>\n

\"anon<\/a>
A page from an anonymous penmanship notebook, probably from the 1840s or 1850s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Another<\/a>
Another page from the same anonymous workbook. The use of the long s (that looks like an “f”) was rapidly falling out of fashion by the 1840s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The preceding examples are workmanlike at best.\u00a0 But some students enjoyed considerable success.\u00a0 The following is from an autograph book kept by Samuel Baxter “Philo” Allis, class of 1880.<\/p>\n

\"From<\/a>
From Samuel Allis’ autograph book. Allis also attended Wesleyan Academy (now Wilbraham and Monson), and there are signatures from both schools.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Finally, here are several pages from a penmanship sampler kept by Luther Hart Potter, class of 1857.\u00a0 Potter was pretty good at the task, and imagined himself teaching calligraphy someday.<\/p>\n

\"potter4\"<\/a>
“L. H. Potter, Teacher of Ornamental Penmanship in fifteen lessons.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"From<\/a>
From Potter’s notebook.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Potter<\/a>
Potter signs with a flourish.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cBad orthography, bad penmanship, or bad grammar\u2014 bad habits in any of the rudiments\u2014 if they be not corrected in the preparatory school, will probably be carried through College and not unlikely extend themselves to other studies and pursuits; whereas the habit of doing every thing well, so far as he goes, will likewise follow … Continue reading Penmanship<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[385,386,384,387],"class_list":["post-3154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-williston-seminary","tag-henry-e-alvord","tag-luther-hart-potter","tag-penmanship","tag-samuel-baxter-allis"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3154"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3154"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3180,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3154\/revisions\/3180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}