The Art of Manliness - #482： The Power of Penmanship

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:18.460 In the 21st century, most of our written communication is done through typing on a

00:00:22.260 computer or tapping digital buttons on a smartphone screen. My guest today argues that we can increase

00:00:26.460 our sense of humanity and our connection to the physical world and to other people by

00:00:30.220 rediscovering the lost art of putting a real pen to real paper. His name is Michael Soule. He's a

00:00:34.740 master penman, penmanship instructor, and the author of several penmanship books. Today on

00:00:38.580 the podcast, I talked to Mike about what it takes to become a master penman and what exactly a master

00:00:42.640 penman does for a living. Michael then takes us on a tour of the history of cursive handwriting,

00:00:46.720 including insights to how culture has influenced handwriting styles throughout the ages and why

00:00:50.620 penmanship has declined in the modern day. Michael then makes the case for why people start writing

00:00:54.700 in cursive again, how to get started with improving your handwriting, and why there's nothing like

00:00:58.060 getting a handwritten note in the mail. Out of the show's over, check out our show notes at

00:01:01.620 aom.is slash penmanship. Okay, Michael Soule, welcome to the show. Well, thank you. So you are a master

00:01:21.940 penman, and up until a few years ago, I did not know the title of master penman existed.

00:01:29.400 So the question is, how does a master penman become a master penman?

00:01:34.700 Well, a hundred years ago, there were many schools, we would call them vocational colleges today,

00:01:42.240 that focused on handwriting for professional use. In the days before typewriters, everything had to be

00:01:49.280 done by hand, and so they had vocational training colleges to teach adults all of the different

00:01:56.660 handwriting skills for detailed certificates, ornamental documents, and such, as well as

00:02:02.560 business writing. If you worked in a bank and such, you had to write everything. Insurance policies were

00:02:08.900 written by hand, and so on. When a person graduated from these schools, which are usually anywhere between

00:02:14.660 12 to 24 months of duration, as far as the curriculum went, you had to make your own document, your own

00:02:22.100 certificate, your graduation diploma. And based on how well you did it, you either, if it was just

00:02:29.620 passable, today we would regard as a C grade, you got a green seal on your certificate. If it was what we

00:02:38.240 would call today a B grade, you got a red seal. And if it was an A grade, you would get a gold seal.

00:02:46.300 And the people who earned the gold seal were usually regarded as masters. And as they left the

00:02:54.080 educational field, and they went into their professions, and their work became more well-known,

00:02:59.360 they started to become, in a sense, sort of legendary. And they either taught at, or they

00:03:06.300 submitted their work for the magazines of the major penmanship institutions of the day. So it was an

00:03:13.480 honorary type of degree, you might say, that everybody regarded these men and women at that

00:03:20.660 certain level. Well, the penmanship profession sort of disappeared after the typewriter really became,

00:03:28.460 in a sense, a formidable tool in business. And that was, my teacher used to tell me that that was in the

00:03:34.740 very middle of the 1920s. It had been, you know, invented many years before and was still used

00:03:42.720 earlier in the century. But it really became a prominent figure, basically, due to World War I and

00:03:49.900 the economic and business endeavors that were related to that, to that event. My teacher used to say that

00:03:56.880 the penmanship profession went down the turlet in 28 because of the typewriter. So years went by,

00:04:04.700 and nobody heard of Master Penman anymore. And finally, I sort of brought it back in the sense that

00:04:11.860 there's a curriculum that we have now, where a person has to demonstrate certain skills in this

00:04:18.960 penmanship arena. And if they, in a sense, bring their skills up to the level of the old masters,

00:04:27.380 they can be certified as a master penman. So you created an organization that governs

00:04:33.900 the certification process. Well, I created a program within an organization. The organization

00:04:39.280 was, it's called IAMPATH. It's the International Association of Master Penmen and Grocers and Handwriting.

00:04:47.340 And I, frankly, got tired of people saying many things about the old penman, but not really

00:04:53.520 promoting it to exist so that people could still be trained and inspire students.

00:04:59.280 The program lasted for 15 years. I was the director of it. And through that time, we certified,

00:05:05.860 I think, 12 or 13 individuals as master penmen. The program has gone under a revision now,

00:05:13.320 and it's still undergoing a revision. But there are still some people who are going through a

00:05:19.040 master penman program at a facility called the Inc. Academy in California. And it's possible that

00:05:27.120 some of the masters themselves can mentor students through their own program to become a master penman.

00:05:33.960 So how did you get into this? Was this idea of being passionate about handwriting and penmanship,

00:05:39.140 was this something you had as a young person? Or was this something, an interest that developed

00:05:43.340 as an adult, and you decided to turn it into a career?

00:05:47.080 Well, my mother was a very able secretary for many years. She was born in the teens.

00:05:54.260 And like many women at that time, she was trained in handwriting. She became a secretary and did,

00:06:00.140 you know, very beautiful handwriting and shorthand and such. And through our lives as children,

00:06:05.360 we always marveled at her handwriting for Christmas cards, greeting cards, the letters that she sent to

00:06:12.660 all of us when we were in school or at scout camp, that kind of thing. Later on, after I went through

00:06:20.040 college and my stint into the Navy, I just wanted to pick up a hobby. And I thought it would be wonderful

00:06:28.560 to write like mom. But there were no books on handwriting that were available in local business

00:06:36.540 or bookstores. The thing is that handwriting is such a pedestrian activity that nobody really thought

00:06:42.620 of just writing a book on how to write, you know, cursive handwriting. It's like there's no book out on

00:06:48.680 how to brush your teeth. It's just such something that we all do. But at that time, which was in the

00:06:54.920 mid-1970s, calligraphy was becoming very popular. And so I got into that and I really loved it.

00:07:03.320 It was something that was consuming for me. I just loved to write like that. It was the closest I could

00:07:09.320 do to writing in a beautiful way like my mother. During that period of time, I founded a calligraphy

00:07:16.480 guild in Virginia Beach. And through that, I met two elderly gentlemen who were master penmen. One was a

00:07:24.340 master and engrossing. At the time that I started all this, I was 30 years old. And this teacher was

00:07:32.740 66 years old. He taught me how to do the old certificates, the very beautiful scrolled

00:07:39.400 certificates. But the most amazing person I met was a man named Paul O'Hara. He was one of the last

00:07:47.260 living masters from the golden age of penmanship. He earned his master's certificate in 1908 at the

00:07:55.940 Zanarian College of Penmanship, which was like the Harvard University of penmanship schools during

00:08:01.660 that period in our country's history. It was in Columbus, Ohio. And he taught me all that I know

00:08:09.600 about penmanship. And it was interesting. He was a physical fitness enthusiast his whole life.

00:08:16.580 In 1913, he wrote an article on physical culture for penmen, which showed him in a t-shirt with all

00:08:24.040 of his muscles and telling everybody how you have to be a limber to be a penman. When I met him,

00:08:30.180 he was 90 years old. And he was still in great shape and was still very good at the art of penmanship.

00:08:38.320 And he took me in. Nobody had talked to him about penmanship at that point in 50 years. So I was very

00:08:45.460 lucky and fortunate. And they inspired me, both of these teachers, to just work as hard as I could

00:08:51.980 to do the best that I could at becoming a penman, master penman like them.

00:08:57.800 So we'll get into the style that you learned from them and why that sort of went out into the wilderness

00:09:02.540 for a little bit. But before that, like master penman, you know, as you said, the typewriter killed

00:09:07.360 penmanship. The computer, I'm sure, just shoveled dirt on the grave of penmanship. Like what in a world

00:09:14.880 that's become, you know, we're all just typing or tapping things on smartphones to communicate. Like, what

00:09:20.140 do you do as a master penman?

00:09:21.540 Well, those of us that are, and basically all calligraphers and penmen who do a lot of this

00:09:30.280 type of work or earn our living at it, do a variety of commission work. We still fill out many

00:09:35.700 certificates and diplomas and documents. The biggest sector of the type of skill that we use

00:09:41.800 is for the wedding industry, doing things like invitation designs, addressing thousands and

00:09:49.520 thousands of envelopes and place cards, escort cards, doing marriage certificates. There are some of us

00:09:56.480 who still do work on occasion for graphic design studios that need to have hand lettering done

00:10:02.780 for various client jobs. It's not, most of the time, it's not the entire text of an advertisement,

00:10:11.500 but just the heading of it or one particular word that may be the branding of the industry's name

00:10:17.740 that commissioned this. We also, of course, design logos. We still do that. I design a lot of monograms

00:10:24.540 and there are others who do that as well. So that's the kind of work that most of us do. We do some work

00:10:31.260 too for stationary developers.

00:10:33.880 Have you noticed that the demand for your skill has gone up in the past few decades?

00:10:38.800 Well, it's interesting. When the computer came up, there was a big dip in the amount of work that all

00:10:46.820 of us all of a sudden found that we weren't really as popular anymore for our skills. But about 10 or 15

00:10:56.600 years went by and all of a sudden there was a resurgence of interest in hand-lettered invitations

00:11:04.220 and hand-lettered documents and such because people start to value the hand-generated skill

00:11:13.900 of recognition. It's sort of a recognition industry. Most of us who do this kind of work professionally

00:11:21.240 I think are very, very fortunate because what we really do is recognize human achievement,

00:11:28.880 whether it's memorializing people who have passed on, congratulating people who have achieved certain

00:11:34.620 levels of skill in their profession, perhaps in their church, but anything that involves recognizing

00:11:42.140 people or their accomplishments. So by hand, we still help people to recognize the human sense

00:11:50.320 of achievement. And to me, that's very special. Now, we're very fortunate and it's ironic too,

00:11:57.540 because the big hero has been social media. All of us who do this work, of course, are scattered all

00:12:03.900 over the world, not just here in the United States. And now it's absolutely effortless for someone

00:12:09.960 in Kansas, like where I live, for our work to be seen in Iceland or in Australia, all over the world.

00:12:18.120 And there's an inherent beauty in hand-generated lettering that you don't find in digital

00:12:25.320 reproductions of decorative or ornamental lettering. There's something very special about it.

00:12:32.780 The certain styles that evoke a sense of gracefulness because of the curves that are inherent in its

00:12:39.700 development are all based on nature. And nature is the same here as it is anywhere else in the world.

00:12:46.740 And people really enjoy and flock to it because it's something very different than the somewhat

00:12:55.340 arid type of environment that most people have to work in today with computers and corridor walls and

00:13:02.120 such. There's a beauty to it that really brings back to mind a time from long ago when that was valued

00:13:09.240 so much. The biggest response that I get is when I do people's names, because no one sees their names

00:13:15.460 like they used to be written. And so it's very encouraging to us. And it's just ironic that

00:13:21.240 the typewriter killed the art and now social media is spreading it all over the world. I teach in

00:13:26.800 countries all over where English isn't even their native language. But the beauty of the penmanship

00:13:32.720 attracts them and they want to learn how to do this kind of work.

00:13:37.180 Yeah, I can definitely see an increase in demand for hand lettering. Because as you said, you have fonts

00:13:44.860 on the computer that can look fancy. And you get that and you're like, well, I can just type and I can do

00:13:50.980 that. But it just seems more authentic, more real when you see that, like, oh, this actually came from

00:13:55.860 someone's hand. It becomes more valuable.

00:13:58.140 Very much so. I have a collection of vintage handwritten pieces, original pieces, specimens

00:14:07.320 from our great masters, the pen masters from 100 years ago. I bring those with me to all my workshops

00:14:15.020 and people are just amazed that what they're seeing isn't just a reproduction. It's not just a print. It's

00:14:22.600 not something they see on the computer. But they knew that that penman 100 years ago was there at

00:14:29.200 that piece of paper and their hand touched it. And that sings to them. It resonates with a tone

00:14:36.320 that's very special. So let's talk about the different styles and the history of penmanship.

00:14:41.200 Because I think it's interesting because it reveals a lot about a culture, right? How they style their

00:14:45.720 handwriting or their writing. Because I can talk about how business has changed handwriting, politics has

00:14:50.920 changed handwriting, education has changed handwriting. So I think this would be a fun topic to delve into.

00:14:55.900 So there's all these different styles of penmanship out there. When did the penmanship or handwriting

00:15:02.040 start looking really fancy, right? Has it always been that way, like in medieval times? Or was there

00:15:07.500 a moment in history where people started getting really flourishing with their writing?

00:15:13.500 Yeah, the answer is yes, there was a time. But you need to go back, as you say, to the

00:15:19.840 Renaissance. The scribes back 500, 600 years ago, they created documents for the glorification of God and

00:15:30.900 for their church. And so it was very special. The text, of course, the Psalms, you know, examples from

00:15:37.340 scripture were very precious, very sacred. And so the scribes of long ago would take a great amount of

00:15:45.480 time to write or describe the different texts that were illuminated to make them very special documents

00:15:54.100 in praise of God. And that's when a lot of gilding, the use of gold took place. They started, oh gosh,

00:16:04.080 in the 1400s, I think, where they would write these beautiful texts in a broad style of lettering.

00:16:12.880 There were many names for these. There was Carolingian, there was Gothic, and many others. But they were

00:16:20.120 all broad pen styles. The years went by, technology started to increase, civilization started to bloom

00:16:29.640 with the mechanization, the industrialization of the different countries. And the certificates

00:16:37.660 really kind of ceased in a way, starting really, oh, maybe like in the late 17th century, I think it

00:16:47.380 was. But when America was founded, things really changed quite a bit. And it wasn't just because

00:16:54.100 we're America. The big change really came with a man named Platt, Roger Spencer, and the invention of

00:17:01.280 the steel pen point. When our country was founded in the 18th century, we were originally, of course,

00:17:08.840 a colony of England. And so all of our people from that period of time, all of our founding fathers,

00:17:14.920 Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, all of them, were taught as children, even if they were taught in the

00:17:21.500 United States, but they were English colonists. They were subjects of England. So they were taught

00:17:27.220 an English style of handwriting. It was called English round hand. Today, we call it copper plate.

00:17:34.680 In that style of writing, all of the downstrokes are shaded by pressing down on the writing tool with

00:17:43.100 a little more pressure. And so the point will spread with the pressure. The ink fills the gap between the

00:17:49.160 two points, and you get a thicker stroke. On paper, that means it's a darker stroke. It's heavier.

00:17:56.440 It's more bold. And so the writing becomes more emphatic or more respectful, such as for writing

00:18:03.080 people's names. But all of the lowercase letters, all of them, were written with a downstroke, and so

00:18:09.260 they were very heavy and shaded. And the letters were a little more based on a round shape than an oval

00:18:16.060 shape. And capitals were fancy compared to what people write today, but they weren't really flourished

00:18:22.600 very much. They weren't huge in terms of the proportion to the lowercase letters. And the idea

00:18:30.080 was that if you and I were students back then, we would need to write just like our teacher and just

00:18:37.240 like each other. So uniformity and consistency were the most important values. Now, in America,

00:18:43.000 there was a man that was born in 1800. His name was Platt Rogers Spencer. And in the 1820s, he created a

00:18:53.560 style that was very different. It was revolutionary at that time. He thought that people shouldn't have

00:18:59.820 to write like everybody else. And America was founded on the principles of individual freedom,

00:19:06.480 individuality, for us not to believe that we had to do everything just like everybody else,

00:19:11.600 a sense of freedom. It was part of who we are. He felt that it should be based, handwriting rather,

00:19:19.400 would be much more adept to human endeavor if it was based not on the strict disciplines of English

00:19:27.380 round hand, but on all of the varieties that you find in nature. He felt that God created nature and

00:19:35.280 God created people. Everywhere you looked, nature had several consistencies. And that was a sense of

00:19:43.020 variety. That's why when you look out anywhere, you see different plants and different birds and

00:19:48.880 so on. There's variety everywhere in nature. You also had the ideas of contrast. And contrast isn't

00:19:55.280 just dark to light. It's a contrast of size, of shape, of color, of direction, of pressure,

00:20:01.180 and so on. And all of that is part of this sense of variety. And the two most important parts were a

00:20:08.040 sense of curvature because every living thing has a sense of curvature about its body. Nobody has cells

00:20:16.020 in their body that are square. Every time anybody moves a muscle, it moves in a curve. Everything from

00:20:23.360 insects to elephants, all moving parts of creatures move in a pivot type of direction, just like your

00:20:32.980 fingers and your hand and your forearm. So curvature was universal. And the idea of movement, you know,

00:20:40.920 every living thing has movement. Even if it's just cell division, that is a sense of movement. But all

00:20:47.260 creatures that we know of that move, move. The wind blows, but the wind doesn't blow in the same

00:20:52.960 direction at the same speed as if you put a fan in a room and just directed it in one position.

00:20:58.920 When you see leaves blow in the wind, they also blow not just, you know, in the air, but they always

00:21:06.160 move in curves when the wind blows them. The wind isn't like a fan. So he felt that those were, well,

00:21:14.040 they were fundamental concepts that people could do and that we could use in the nature of our

00:21:21.300 handwriting. When your hand and fingers and such move, they move in a curve. So that's nature.

00:21:28.440 When you write, besides the movement, you write with curves. It's harder for a person to draw a

00:21:35.740 straight line than a curve because our bodies aren't made to do that. We can, but it's a little

00:21:40.820 more effort. If you close your eyes and just move your hand up and down, you know, basically pivoting

00:21:45.680 from your elbow, you can make a curve, a perfect curve on a piece of paper. So those four fundamental

00:21:51.900 concepts changed everything. And when he introduced them in the early 1830s, it was immediately popular.

00:22:01.320 The reason why was because all of a sudden a farmer in Iowa or a mine worker in Pennsylvania or

00:22:09.940 anybody that wasn't in those days what they called an academic, a doctor, a lawyer, a formal teacher

00:22:17.440 who learned penmanship at a college or at a school, a university, the higher educated type of people.

00:22:26.320 Now the common folk, anybody who worked anywhere could do penmanship and it would be correct.

00:22:33.240 And they would have something that nobody else had. They would have their own style,

00:22:37.460 their individuality. And that's what made it their handwriting. Spencer's idea was as long as

00:22:44.700 the curves were smooth and the letters were consistently slanted, the same angle, and that

00:22:51.720 the letters were consistently spaced, then that's all that was really needed. If you wanted to shade a

00:22:58.780 letter, that would be great. If you didn't, that's fine as well. He felt that if you shaded all your

00:23:04.360 letters, they would be pretty, but they'd be kind of boring. Everything would be the same.

00:23:08.460 If you didn't shade anything, then it would also be kind of boring because it would all be the same.

00:23:14.720 So shading of letters to him was an accent and it gave a sense of enthusiasm or respect.

00:23:20.940 If you wanted to write someone's name and have it be, you know, very pronounced, you could,

00:23:26.860 you would write it, but you would maybe make the capitals with more shade and a little fancier

00:23:32.500 with perhaps more curves. It just changed the way everything was done in America. American 0.63

00:23:38.740 script, which was called Spencerian script, became our national system of handwriting in the 1800s,

00:23:45.400 in the 19th century. And it stayed that way until the 20th century, when a man named Austin Norman

00:23:51.660 Palmer again changed it by modifying Spencerian script.

00:23:56.540 We're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors.

00:23:58.500 And now back to the show. Well, the other thing that was going on there, talking about how

00:24:03.940 handwriting can reveal a lot about culture. I mean, you talked a lot about nature and like,

00:24:08.760 that's part of what was going on with Spencerian. Like during America, during that time, that's when 0.93

00:24:13.160 the romantic movement was going on. And you had Thoreau and Emerson talking about getting back to

00:24:18.420 nature. And so the handwriting of an America at that time reflected that mood or feeling that was

00:24:24.080 going on there at that time.

00:24:25.420 Oh, it definitely was a style for the time. It really was. You know, England, of course,

00:24:31.800 had their Victorian era and that carried over to a certain extent into America as well, you know,

00:24:36.980 with romanticism and such. And the, well, as you said, the literature that was coming out at that

00:24:43.780 point with the naturalists and such, this type of writing was perfect for it. It was also romantic

00:24:51.020 in the sense of people writing social correspondence and love letters and such, because now you could

00:24:56.500 write your feelings in a much more ornamental way. And that, again, that just fostered more and more

00:25:04.340 of the feeling that writing should be nice. And the other thing that was prominent during that time,

00:25:10.280 of course, was how significant a person's signature was. Today, when people write, they just usually

00:25:17.300 scribble their name and don't think much about it. Well, during this golden romantic period,

00:25:22.700 your name was everything. Your name, the way that you wrote it on calling cards, that gave other

00:25:30.480 people the impression of if you were educated, if you were, you know, a person of culture, if you were

00:25:37.840 a business person of reputation, because you took pride in your name. And many times, a person's

00:25:45.220 signature and a card is what gave them an entrance as far as applying to certain positions and

00:25:51.860 different jobs. So it's sort of like an Instagram feed, right? That you could tell someone about

00:25:57.320 someone just, you know, today we look at their Instagram feed, oh, this guy's a business person.

00:26:00.640 They did that with your signature back in the 19th century. Yes, they did.

00:26:05.000 Okay. So you mentioned Austin Palmer. He changed the handwriting game in America. Tell us about

00:26:10.620 him and what changes he brought. Well, A.N. Palmer, Austin Norman Palmer, was actually

00:26:16.560 from New Hampshire, but he lived most of his life in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. And he went to a very famous

00:26:24.720 college or institution of penmanship and, you know, graduated and was able to do very, very fancy

00:26:32.700 penmanship. But he was more interested in education and teaching penmanship and the business of penmanship

00:26:39.980 rather than just making a lot of diplomas, that sort of thing, as an engrossing studio would really

00:26:47.840 exist for. And there were many of them in the country. So he developed a style. He began his

00:26:56.920 professional career working for a railroad company and his job was writing cargo manifests,

00:27:04.660 you know, the detail of cargoes on trains. And he saw that the men and women who were paid the most,

00:27:13.520 you got paid by how many cargo manifests you could write in a day. So you were paid by each one you

00:27:18.380 could create. And the ones who were paid the most and wrote the fastest did not put shade on their

00:27:26.400 letters as Spenserian did. And they didn't put any extra curves or ovals on it for ornamentation.

00:27:33.440 It was just the bare bones letters themselves. They were still spaced properly. They were still

00:27:38.600 the correct shape, but there was no ornamentation at all. Well, they were using in that period of time,

00:27:46.640 everybody who wrote was using their shoulder muscles. It's called whole arm movement,

00:27:51.380 where your hand doesn't move a great deal itself. It's not like you move your fingers a lot,

00:27:56.560 but your whole arm is propelled by your shoulder muscles. And he saw that the people who were doing

00:28:05.680 that wrote very quickly and they were able to get paid more because they had a greater volume of work.

00:28:13.200 But then he started thinking about this idea of teaching and he thought that it would be easier

00:28:18.940 for children to learn if they were taught, not Spenserian, but sort of a naked Spenserian,

00:28:26.880 like those people were doing without any shades and ornamentation, but had their forearm on the table,

00:28:34.040 whole arm movement, the shoulder movement, your arm, your entire arm is off the table when you write,

00:28:39.720 just your fingers and the pen point are touching the table. So there's no friction and you can write

00:28:44.860 very fast. But children didn't need to write very fast. And he thought that if your forearm was on

00:28:50.300 the table with your elbow, just a few inches off the table, and you use a combination of your forearm,

00:28:57.560 your wrist and your fingers, you could easily write across a sheet of paper without fatigue,

00:29:04.160 as long as you kept your posture correct. He called it Palmer method writing.

00:29:09.760 And he started to write books and instructional sheets. He started his own penmanship magazine.

00:29:17.120 It was called the Western Penman. And he started to experiment with it by offering to teach it

00:29:23.940 to the nuns at some of the various schools in the Chicago area. And it was, again, it was an immediate

00:29:30.900 success. They really enjoyed it a lot. It was just easier for children to learn. It became a huge

00:29:38.740 popular method of handwriting. And at the World's Fair, I think it was in St. Louis, just at the

00:29:46.420 turn of the century, he introduced it with a display and he had some models there and he did

00:29:52.200 demonstrations. And one of the superintendents of the New York City school system saw it and took

00:29:59.120 it back to New York and adopted it. And it was a huge hit in New York City. And when that happened,

00:30:04.360 it wasn't long before the whole country took it over. So Palmer method writing surpassed Spenserian

00:30:11.300 script. And once that happened, and it was so popular, many of the other penmen jumped on board

00:30:18.680 and they started to write their own books on the same style and name it after themselves.

00:30:23.940 So there was McLean's system of handwriting and Behrensmeyer's system of handwriting. And

00:30:28.780 it just went on and on. But it was all basically Palmer method writing. And that lasted pretty much

00:30:36.580 through the 1960s. And beginning really in the very late 60s and early 70s, when the computer era was in

00:30:46.420 its infancy, that people started to think of it as old fashioned. They were forgetting about how

00:30:54.000 important it was in the sense of encouraging good posture and, you know, just the idea of having a

00:31:02.660 concept of language when you write. Because of course, the only way you can write is to think of

00:31:08.420 what you want to write, which means you have to think about grammar and, you know, proper usage of

00:31:13.860 language. So in the 1960s, and again, with the freedom movement that was part of the 1960s,

00:31:21.460 people started to get away from what today we would call the vintage styles of penmanship.

00:31:28.380 As you went ahead now another 10 years or so, now we're into the early 1980s, there were several

00:31:36.600 people who, because really of, you know, desktop publishing and the use of computers, there were

00:31:45.240 several people who became fascinated with handwriting and really thought that Palmer method writing was

00:31:51.260 too obscure and too dated and it was too fancy. And so they created styles, which I call compromise

00:31:58.220 styles, where lettering is really sort of a secondary thought. It's more of, we want to make it easier for

00:32:05.560 children to write. So they started to invent styles that weren't as slanted. They were more upright and

00:32:12.680 they were more boxy in terms of the way that they were shaped. And they tried to make it an easy

00:32:17.980 transition from printing or today what they call manuscript to an adult style of handwriting.

00:32:25.260 They did excellent marketing of these different styles. They became very popular and they're still

00:32:31.540 popular today, but they don't really foster good penmanship. So today there are several people,

00:32:38.820 and I'm one of them, who have been asked over the last few years to write books to bring back the

00:32:45.080 traditions of good handwriting, where you don't lean over your work, where your posture is correct,

00:32:50.880 where you don't get aches and pains in your shoulder and such, where you do what was done many years ago.

00:32:57.020 So because of this, and because of social media spreading the news about it, and because of all of the

00:33:03.100 various locations that now several of us are going to to teach, it's making a big comeback.

00:33:10.000 The books that I've written are unprecedented in the kind of sales that they're receiving.

00:33:16.440 I find it hard to believe myself. And my book on Spenserian was just translated into the Mandarin

00:33:23.560 language. I just came back from teaching in Macau and Taiwan, where the book was released. And

00:33:30.480 it's amazing the enthusiasm that people have there for writing these old styles because of the beauty of

00:33:37.840 them. So a lot to unpack there. Again, I loved how you talked about the Palmer method. It came out at

00:33:45.460 the same time in America when industrialization was really picking up steam. It sounds like the

00:33:50.800 Palmer method was sort of like Taylorism, right? Looking for efficiency in writing, but still looked

00:33:55.980 nice. But it was very efficient, and that kind of fit the ethos of the country at the time.

00:34:01.780 Absolutely. And remember, it was before typewriters.

00:34:04.220 Right. So yeah. I've read some of those books, and it's amazing how detailed they get on what you

00:34:10.820 hold your hand. It's kind of overwhelming sometimes.

00:34:15.500 Yes. You had to write a certain number of characters a minute. In the books, they would

00:34:20.740 say, we want you to write 60 of these letters a minute or 70 per minute because they were trying

00:34:26.840 to get you to write quickly so that you would be marketable to get a job in business as a secretary

00:34:33.820 or as even a manager. Because the faster you could write, the more productive you were.

00:34:41.460 Right. And so Palmer method, about the standard up into the 1960s, then you mentioned in the 70s,

00:34:47.980 they developed this more simplified version. The one I think I learned in elementary school was

00:34:52.440 Danielian script. Oh, yeah. That was the one I learned. And I think every kid who grew up in

00:34:57.180 the 80s probably writes exactly the same way. Well, yeah, that was one of the ones that became

00:35:03.540 very well marketed. And most people who, and I'd be criticized for this, but most people who

00:35:10.500 learned as children, those type of scripts that weren't really slanted and were more primary,

00:35:18.140 don't use them at all when they become adults. They just sort of forget about it.

00:35:23.280 They do today. Most people today write for only two reasons. One is to either give or receive

00:35:31.840 information and to write as fast as you can. And the only thing that's important is legibility.

00:35:38.120 And I have a term for it. I call it info writing. You're writing for the sake of information.

00:35:42.700 And so there's many people, probably 80%, if not more, of the adult population writes in a way that

00:35:52.040 is more or less a combination of cursive where you have joined letters and manuscript or printed letters

00:35:58.900 because they just write as fast as they can in the easiest way that they can make their letters

00:36:04.480 legible so that it can be read. You know, a lot of people say, I can't read my own handwriting.

00:36:10.740 Well, handwriting that can't be read is pretty worthless. But if you're conveying information

00:36:16.240 and you don't have a computer, so you have to write it, it's got to be legible. But again,

00:36:23.100 there's a real big surge in interest now of getting back to having pride in your penmanship,

00:36:30.900 having it look nice. A lot of people feel that their handwriting now does reflect themselves.

00:36:37.140 And even if it doesn't reflect it to other people, it does to themselves personally. And it makes

00:36:43.780 them feel more, how can I say it, more at ease, a greater sense of self-worth if they can write

00:36:51.080 nicely instead of just scribble.

00:36:53.980 So besides that sense of identity that comes with learning how to write nicely with penmanship,

00:37:00.260 why do you think, what are the other benefits of writing things by hand in a pleasant script?

00:37:06.140 Oh, there's many. Writing, handwriting is a purely human activity. We're the only creatures that we

00:37:14.780 know of that really write. And so there's something very special about it. You're actually transferring

00:37:21.920 your thoughts into visible language on paper for someone else to read.

00:37:29.100 There are two different styles, not styles, modes of handwriting. One is called business writing,

00:37:34.900 where you're basically just writing to give information. What style you use is up to you,

00:37:41.240 but it's just the sake of passing on information. The other is called social writing. And that's when

00:37:47.020 you want to write your Aunt Mary a letter and asking her how Christmas was, or you want to write a

00:37:51.580 friend and telling them how much you miss them. Writing by hand for the sake of social writing is,

00:38:00.000 it's a purely emotional kind of writing. You choose, because you don't have to do it for business,

00:38:07.880 you don't have to do it in a certain amount of time. And so you choose where you want to write,

00:38:12.820 what pen you use, the lighting, that kind of thing, what paper. And so it's an expression of

00:38:20.020 your own emotion to the value of the person that you're writing with. You're giving them the most

00:38:25.840 precious thing you possibly can. You're giving them your time. You're giving them a part of your life.

00:38:32.360 And so it's an emotional feeling that makes us as people feel a little more worth, perhaps,

00:38:40.500 in the way that we communicate. It's nothing that you can measure. It's nothing that can be

00:38:45.080 sort of regulated or measured by dollars, but it's very real. It's the way that we tell people how much

00:38:53.300 we think of them and how much we're concerned or what's going on in our lives. It's very special.

00:39:00.200 The other thing about writing is that, and this has been proven time and time again,

00:39:04.420 especially for children. When you write, you tend to remember what you're writing about because it

00:39:11.640 takes time to do it. And in order to do it, you have to think a lot about what you're going to say,

00:39:18.400 what the subject is, and how it's going to appear on paper. In other words, legibility.

00:39:25.500 It activates certain portions of the brain that are very conducive to cognitive thought.

00:39:32.200 So in children, handwriting is much more effective than keyboarding in teaching language skills and

00:39:40.760 having the concept of legibility. The idea of writing gives children also a sense of grammar,

00:39:49.760 sentence structure, and such, because you need to do that when you write. It's key for that. In the old

00:39:56.280 days, when Master Penman were the kings of penmanship in terms of teaching and telling everybody,

00:40:02.200 about all this that I'm describing, because there really aren't Master Penman anymore that do that,

00:40:09.000 if you want to call them the heroes of supporting penmanship, are occupational therapists and some

00:40:17.020 educators as well, because they recognize these things. Handwriting also fosters good posture,

00:40:23.560 so that whenever you do write, you're not going to get aches and pains. It's very conducive to

00:40:29.520 the cognitive and motor skill development in children.

00:40:34.800 I've seen that fact of you tend to remember more when you write things by hand. When I was in law

00:40:40.520 school, my first semester, I had my keyboard there and I would just type everything, like transcribe

00:40:46.040 everything my professor said. But I was like, I don't remember any of this stuff. I'd have to like

00:40:50.460 review over and over again. And then the second semester, I just started bringing a notebook

00:40:54.840 and just writing notes. And what it forced me to do was really listen to the lecturer

00:40:59.640 and process and think, is this really an important point? And because I did that extra,

00:41:06.580 a little bit of extra effort because I was writing by hand, I think there was a bit more payoff.

00:41:10.140 Oh, handwriting takes longer than keyboarding. So there's more thought involved in producing it.

00:41:17.240 And that does exactly what you just described.

00:41:20.480 And the other way where handwriting saved me in law school, there's this one day I showed up for a

00:41:26.580 test and my computer didn't work. So I couldn't take my test on my computer and I was just freaking

00:41:33.120 out. But I was able to handwrite it. And because my handwriting is pretty legible, did it in cursive.

00:41:38.840 I did well. So it was, it saved me at the last minute. So I'm glad I still kept up with that

00:41:44.040 skill. I'm glad you had that experience. Yeah, no. Let's say someone's listening to this podcast

00:41:49.160 and I'm sure a lot of people think this all the time. They're like, I just, my handwriting is

00:41:53.340 terrible. I wish I could improve it. Like what's the best way to get started learning or relearning

00:42:00.420 how to write in cursive, but do it well? Well, there's, there's several things. First thing you

00:42:06.040 just have to decide and agree upon is that you have to practice it every day. It's a life skill,

00:42:13.280 but your life as, as old as anybody is, has probably been doing handwriting in a certain

00:42:20.700 way for all those years. So it's a skill that you have to change and that takes time. And you have to

00:42:27.520 accept that and not feel that it's such a negative factor that you're not going to do it.

00:42:33.100 But writing every day can turn out to be something that's very special and very enjoyable. You would

00:42:41.140 start to write, you know, just notes to yourself or letters to other people, start journaling,

00:42:47.260 create a personal journal. In the old days, they call them diaries. So that's one thing you would

00:42:53.140 need to find the right writing tool that you're comfortable with. Now, most of us, you know,

00:42:59.060 when we were children, you know, we all had certain ballpoint pens that were inexpensive and

00:43:04.180 were pencils. Pencils are actually an excellent tool to write with because the graphite is soft

00:43:08.860 in the point. And so it's very smooth. You just need to sharpen it, you know, fairly often. If someone

00:43:15.080 really wanted to do this, instead of the standard pencils, which is what we call a 2H hardness in the

00:43:21.620 lead, I'd recommend for someone to find a 3H pencil because it has a little more clay in mixed with the

00:43:28.900 graphite. So it's harder. You don't have to sharpen it as often. There are, of course, many tools out

00:43:34.760 today that are absolutely excellent and don't cost very much. There's a lot of markers, roller balls,

00:43:40.060 gel writers, besides, you know, fountain pens and ballpoint pens. But it's easy for someone with very

00:43:47.720 little investment, you know, five, ten dollars even to find a tool that they're comfortable with. So

00:43:54.860 you should, but you should find it. You should find one of those. And then you should get yourself some

00:44:00.140 pads so that you, you know, you can start writing, not just post-it notes, not just something that's

00:44:06.640 something to scribble on the grocery list, but an actual tablet. And then probably the most helpful

00:44:12.760 thing is to find a book that focuses just on, you know, relearning or training yourself in cursive

00:44:22.600 handwriting. That's frankly why I wrote mine. Although I've written books on Spencerian, I've taught it for

00:44:29.940 a long time. At one point, many of my students were mothers who homeschooled their children. And a lot of

00:44:38.480 the primary grade instructional books for handwriting don't really have a great, not a great deal of

00:44:46.280 actual handwriting examples. They have short sentences and they're written or they're printed

00:44:50.800 at a very large size and they have a lot of, you know, cutesy illustrations, but they don't really have

00:44:57.340 a ton of lettering. And they're also, you know, you write in the books many times. And so there's not a

00:45:05.220 lot of, how can I say it, a lot of what I call onboard time where you're really writing sentences,

00:45:11.660 where you're really writing language. If you're writing, if you practice your handwriting by writing

00:45:17.080 A, A, A, B, B, B, that's good initially to get you started. But the best way of learning handwriting,

00:45:25.940 in my opinion, is as you learn to write the specific letters, then you practice them together

00:45:32.380 in words. Because I don't go up to someone and say, B, B, B, B. I speak to them in language.

00:45:40.280 And so if you start to practice your writing in sentences or with words, you're using your penmanship

00:45:47.380 in the way that we all speak. It's much better that way. They asked me to write a book on traditional

00:45:54.080 handwriting because they weren't pleased with these primary type of books, of handwriting books.

00:45:59.840 So I did. And it's a huge book. It's 350 pages. There's 122 lessons. It's the most comprehensive

00:46:09.540 book that's been written on cursive writing, traditional writing in probably 70 years.

00:46:15.060 And I called it because I didn't want to name it after me. And it was very much like what Palmer did.

00:46:20.620 I just called it American Curse of Handwriting. And I was amazed at how popular the book is.

00:46:26.860 And then about a year or two ago, I was asked to write a book for a commercial publishing company

00:46:35.080 for adults on handwriting. I said, I already did. But of course, my book had a lot of references to

00:46:43.980 teachers and grades and parents and educational, basically primary schools. So I re-edited it and

00:46:52.360 added some extra chapters on artistic writing, signature, fitting handwriting practice into the

00:46:59.440 adult schedule. And I called it The Art of Cursive Penmanship. That book came out this July.

00:47:06.580 And so it's still, it's only six months and it's already in its third printing and it's for adults.

00:47:13.140 So, but there are others as well. I don't, I'm not trying to just promote this, but there are other

00:47:19.080 books too that have come out in recent years on, you know, handwriting. That's not just a primary

00:47:24.780 grade type of book, but person who really wants to get back into writing well. It's invaluable to

00:47:34.580 have a good guide, a reference that shows all these things and talks not just about letters, but about

00:47:40.460 posture, about, you know, what's the difference between left-handers and right-handers, about the

00:47:46.760 tools, how to use the different tools. My book even has a chapter on how to write a personal letter

00:47:52.180 because nobody teaches that anymore. So something that really is a thorough curriculum in a sense

00:48:00.080 about all of these different aspects of handwriting so that the writer can enjoy it and use it as part

00:48:07.360 of their life to communicate, you know, visually with other people. If someone receives your letter,

00:48:13.500 you know, how you write is a reflection to them of who you are. You can't help it. And if you

00:48:21.260 scribble something that tells somebody that I'm not really worth their time, it's like speaking too

00:48:25.540 fast where somebody can't even understand what you're trying to say. It's very hard to hear something

00:48:30.620 like that. Does that make sense?

00:48:32.620 That makes perfect sense. And I mean, I imagine too, learning how to hand write well and doing it

00:48:38.860 more often, it's going to set you apart because not a lot of people do that these days.

00:48:43.280 Oh, absolutely. You know, it's kind of an offshoot of this, but there are many places where in America

00:48:51.980 you can buy some nice paper to write on, but the beautiful, you know, either handmade or what they

00:48:59.840 call mold-made stationary papers are hard to find anymore in America. They still make them in Europe and

00:49:07.700 in Asia. But in America, people have gone from writing long letters to note cards, you know,

00:49:15.260 because they're short and you just basically can write a few lines to say, hi, how are you?

00:49:20.440 Without really becoming lengthy at explaining what you're trying to say. That's kind of sad in a way,

00:49:27.520 but people don't seem to have as much time as they used to that they allot for human communication.

00:49:34.380 So if you can find some nice stationary, and there are still some available in America. Some of them

00:49:41.980 that we have here are from other countries, but they're just, they're wonderful. They really excite

00:49:47.840 me to write on them because the paper itself is just glorious instead of just a line sheet of tablet

00:49:55.340 paper. Well, Michael, is there some place people can go to learn more about your work?

00:49:59.080 Yes, you certainly can. My website is Spencerian.com and my Instagram is Michael R. Saul. And so is my

00:50:10.180 Facebook, Michael R. Saul. And people can go on there. And do you post your work, some of your work

00:50:15.480 on your Instagram? You know, I really, well, my wife does. I'm not too good at the technical side of

00:50:23.260 things, but I do write quite a bit. My teacher, my teacher, my students and my wife post my work quite

00:50:31.820 a bit. People can also look up my name on the internet. And there's a lot of examples there of

00:50:38.300 things that I've done in the past and I'm doing now. Well, Michael Saul, thank you so much for your

00:50:43.000 time. It's been an absolute pleasure. Well, thank you. I hope this has been helpful. And I just really

00:50:48.120 would encourage people to remember that they're a human being. They're not just a machine that

00:50:53.500 punches, you know, a keyboard. You have thoughts and you have emotions. And the best thing you can

00:51:00.720 do is to share them with people through handwriting. It's part of you that you're giving to them and

00:51:06.200 people really appreciate it. So thank you so much for this time for letting me join you on this podcast.

00:51:12.720 My guest today was Michael Saul. He is a master penman and penman instructor. You can find out more

00:51:17.060 information about his work and find some of his books he's written on improving your handwriting

00:51:20.200 at Spenserian.com. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash penmanship where you can find links

00:51:25.820 to resources. We can delve deeper into this topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM

00:51:42.460 podcast. Check out our website at artofmanliness.com where you can find thousands of free articles and

00:51:46.580 just about anything. Penmanship, personal finance, social skills, physical fitness, you name it,

00:51:51.180 we've got it. If you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate it if you take one minute to give us a

00:51:54.500 review on iTunes or Stitcher. It helps that a lot. And if you've done that already, please consider

00:51:58.000 sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think would get something out of it.

00:52:01.140 As always, thank you for your continued support. Until next time, this is Brett McCary reminding you

00:52:04.340 to not only listen to the AOM podcast, but put what you've learned into action.

00:52:16.580 Thank you for listening to the AOM podcast.

The Art of Manliness - February 13, 2019

#482： The Power of Penmanship

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