Catholic School Penmanship and FPs

[Sparky]

As a product of Catholic Schools in the 60's and early 70's I remember that we were not allowed to use ball points, but the nuns wanted us to use FP's. They had cheapie shaeffer and parker pens that they kids used. I remember thinking that ball points were a "bad" thing as a kid. Anyone remember having to write with FP's. We also had to use blue not black ink.

[Sonnet]

My parents, who attended Catholic grade school and high school from the early 1950s to the late 1960s. I don't think they were allowed [or able] to use ballpoints until high school. When my mother first started school, fountain pens that could be filled via cartridges were pretty new. My grandmother bought one for my mom to use because she always like new stuff. Meanwhile, most of my mom's classmates were still using the self-filling pens.

[RLTodd]

Interesting. I started the first grade in 1950 and all we used were pencils. No pens.

[Mannenhitsu]

I have talked with several friends of mine that attended Catholic Schools in the 1960s here in Michigan. They all commented that they had to use fountain pens, mostly Sheaffer Schools Pens to be exact. That said, they not allowed to use ballpoints, and the only ink color they could use was blue.

 

I use to date a girl who attended Catholic grade and high school, until her Junior year in the early 1980s. She too, was only allowed to use fountain pens until the end of 8th grade. This was when her school decided to lift the ban on ballpoints and let the students start using them. However, she was always required to use blue ink, never any other color. However, the Sisters always loved to red ink when it came to correcting her papers.

Edited May 24, 2006 by Mannenhitsu

[Phthalo]

When I was in Catholic grade school (80's), it wasn't until the 5th grade that we were allowed to use pens, and receive - wait for it - our 'pen licence'.

 

FP's were encouraged, but hardly used. Once we started using pens, the ink had to be blue. If your penmanship was good, you could progress to using black ink. As the penmanship improved further, you could then progress to purple ink, and then finally green ink. It was in the 5th grade that my love affair with pens began I'm sure.

 

I used to think this was perhaps isolated to my school, but I've met contemporaries who remember the same thing at their Catholic schools, and in some cases, public schools too. Seems pen licenses were a fad at the time.

Edited May 24, 2006 by Phthalo

[Betty]

When I was in Catholic grade school (80's), it wasn't until the 5th grade that we were allowed to use pens, and receive - wait for it - our 'pen licence'.

 

FP's were encouraged, but hardly used.  Once we started using pens, the ink had to be blue.  If your penmanship was good, you could progress to using black ink.  As the penmanship improved further, you could then progress to purple ink, and then finally green ink.  It was in the 5th grade that my love affair with pens began I'm sure.

 

I used to think this was perhaps isolated to my school, but I've met contemporaries who remember the same thing at their Catholic schools, and in some cases, public schools too.  Seems pen licenses were a fad at the time.

That's so funny to graduate to pen colors

 

We weren't allowed pens until 4th grade, and beginning in 4th grade, pen (black or blue) was mandatory unless it was math. I remember in 3rd grade, bunch of kids wanted to use pens but it wasn't allowed, but then in 4th grade, kids forgot their pens and used pencils and it wasn't allowed. It's in in the thrill of doing something you're not allowed

Edited May 24, 2006 by Betty

[J. John Harvey]

My mother told me that when she was in school in the 60s, they used cheap fountain pens. She was looking at my Lamy Safari and told me that the other pens weren't as confusing as the converter on it - She mentioned lever-fillers and button-fillers.

[acfrery]

Born in Argentina in 1960, I went to a catholic school. Ball points were strictly forbidden, and we all used cheap fountain pens filled with cartridges. I had completely forgotten the mandatory use of blue and blue-black inks; now I vaguely remember that fountain-pen black ink was not allowed in order not to confuse it with India ink (that we called "Chinese ink"), that was used in calligraphy lessons. We used dip pens for calligrapy and lead pencils for math.

 

That was fun!

 

Alejandro

[Visoflex]

Here in the UK, when I attended primary school, just as we were learning to do copper-plate writing, we had a change of head-teacher. He decreed that the copper-plate style was old fashioned, and hence forward all pupils and teachers would adopt the Marion Richardson style of script.

 

At the same time, all ball points were banned. We had to use either pencil or the UK schools Platignum dip / cartridge pen, or you could bring in your own fountain pen. He believed that use of the ball point was detrimental to the forming of letters, as it did not provide the necessary resistance on the paper necessary to the writing of well formed letters.

 

BTW - It was not a Catholic school.

[OldGriz]

Parochial (Catholic) school for me was in the 50's. We only used fountain pens and were only allowed to use washable blue ink. The prefered pen was a cartridge filler because they did not want ink bottles in the classroom. I don't believe we were allowed to use a ballpoint until I started HS.

As for the teaching, my handwriting became a form of self-preservation. If you did not hold the pen properly or write neatly you would get your knuckles smacked with a ruler or pointer. I swear to this day that those nuns could handle a pointer better than any Jedi Knight handles a light saber.

[p-zero]

My husband attended Catholic school through 8th grade. I asked him if he used fountain pens. He said yes & all the boys would have blue inks stains on their shirt pockets. He doesn't know what kind of pens they were, but they were clear blue or something like that. The nuns must not have rapped his knuckles too much as his penmanship leaves A LOT to be desired! <_<

[Anne-Sophie]

I went to the same kind of school from 1st to 12th grade in France

 

It was reversed we started with pencil but soon were forced to write with the ugliest yellow Bic sticks.

 

The baron Bic was, at the time, rumored to be a big contributor to the Catholic Church.

 

We were allowed only Blue or Black for writing, we had to buy Green and Red which with black were used to underline words. Green was for subject(s), red for verbs and black for objet(s).

 

I discovered fountain pens, dip pens at home and had a blast with them. I also found multicolor big ball points with such fun colors as purple, teal and pink. I sneaked in at school and lo and behold it was discovered and almost taken away for me. Fortunately being very pale, I blush easily and with my head down I was the picture of remorse. I kept the pen and brought it back home at lunch.

 

I don't like restriction, so I used the multicolor pen for my "practice homework", penmanship, composition and dictation was to be written in a thin cheap paper notebook.

"Official Homework had to be done on a thick nice white paper notebook, I did use the official and approved colors for this one (I wanted good grades).

 

We were supposed to wait for 6th grade to use a fountain pen but I couldn't. In 5th grade, I got a cheap brown stypen pen filled with blue short waterman florida blue cartridges.

 

Oh! And I replaced the ugly yellow bics by a fat four color bic pen, I argued successfully that it was much simpler and faster to click colors in and out that to switch pen while doing grammar analysis.

I was very slow on written exercises and it worked in my favor they let me keep the pen in class.

It was a Bic after all.

 

The next year I keept the brown Stypen as a "backup pen" and upgraded to a silver colored metal waterman with the long waterman florida blue cartridges and a ink eraser

 

I still keep the habit of having a daily user and backup pen filled with the same ink and then some...

Edited June 4, 2006 by Anne-Sophie

[RichardS]

A UK perspective. At my prep school in the 1960s we (or rather, our parents) were encouraged to buy fountain pens or use school-supplied dip pens. The recommended FPs were Osmiroids, where you had the choice of the 65 (lever fill) or 75 (piston fill) models, in a wide range of nib grades, including various obliques and "left hand" nibs. Ink was Parker Washable Blue, and every desk had an inkwell, replenished regularly (but I've no idea how or by whom). Blotting paper was plentiful and pink, and great for soaking with ink and flinging at the ceiling where it stuck quite nicely. Ballpoints were totally forbidden - which in the way of these things made many of us extremely resentful!

 

My maroon Osmiroid 65, fine nib, was a prized possession, but the boy being father of the man, I was soon looking around for alternatives. My all-time favorite was a Sheaffer school pen, black with chrome cap, which started me in a lifelong admiration for their superb nibs.

 

We were all taught Marion Richardson style handwriting, which I think is charmless and clumsy, and have tried to shake off (without much success) to this day.

 

Moving to my senior school, any colour inks were allowed - apart from red for obvious reasons - but ballpoints still frowned upon if not actually forbidden. This was not a Catholic school; in fact it was founded by Dean Colet, Henry VIII's chaplain. And I suppose you don't get much more Protestant than that ...

[Betty]

This may be an ironic thing to say on a fountain pen board, but "it's just a pen! Why were the schools so insistent on fountain pens? Students should be able to use whatever they can afford". I've never studied or been to the UK and don't know how much a fountain pen cost, but it seems like the schools shunned ballpoint pens.

 

The only pen problem I ever heard of while in school was allowing students to use a pen or a pencil. Gel pens and rollerballs seemed to be practically nonexistent when I was in elementary school (80's-90's)

[BillTheEditor]

In case anyone who went to a non-parochial grade school after the mid-70s is wondering, it wasn't only Catholic schools that required fountain pens. In Dallas, at least, in the 1950's and 60's, we also used fountain pens, starting in the fifth or sixth grade. (It was pencil only in grades 1 through 4, maybe 5).

 

Although we were Catholic (and I still am, and will always be unless they throw me out, so spare me the smirky "raised-Catholic-but-left-as-soon-as-possible" stories), we couldn't afford the tuition so my sister, brother, and I went to public schools. And we all used fountain pens through high school.

 

Betty asked, "Why so insistent on fountain pens?" In fifty years, perhaps people will ask, "Why so insistent on personal computers?" It was fountain pens because that's what people used then. It was a basic skill that the schools were expected to teach. As ballpoint pens became more common and more acceptable in the business community, the expectation that a high-school graduate would own and be competent to use a fountain pen just faded away. Don't blame the nuns! It was personnel managers who looked for those tell-tale ink stains on the fingers. Eventually the boss told the personnel people that ballpoints were ok. Sic transit gloria mundi.

 

It's easy to forget (or not to know at all) how excited people were over the Parker T-Ball Jotter. Can you believe that there were television commercials for ballpoint pens?!

 

But things change. Look at what kids learn in school today and think, "This too shall pass."

[RichardS]

Betty, I may be mis-remembering but I think the Osmiroid 65 cost 5/6 (5 shillings and six pence; today 27.5p), and the 75 was 6/6 (32.5p). This also included your name engraved on the side!

 

The school felt, with some justification, that learning to write with a fountain pen would give us more legible handwriting. And having used various rollerballs and ballpoints over the intervening years, I've found that now, using FPs exclusively, my handwriting has improved hugely.

 

I suppose inflation has multiplied those 1960s amounts 15-20 times. But worst case, £6.50 ($11-12?) doesn't seem to demanding an investment in your child's future?

 

In the UK, thats about the cost of 10 cans of Coke ...

[kazoolaw]

Although I attended Catholic grade school, we never were issued fountain pens.

Their use, however, may be attributable to more than just what was on hand.

 

Fountain pens can be used with a lighter grip, avoiding the 'writer's callous' on one's finger. They also are easier to control, making for better handwriting. See Richard Binder's website for an explanation in greater detail.

 

Despite a full year of practice, including missing recess, I was the only student in third grade not to earn a Palmer Method certificate. Oh, the shame! Really. My mother was mortified, and I spent part of my summer doing handwriting exercises. The only Palmer pins I ever got I purchased on ebay.

[Sonnet]

Despite a full year of practice, including missing recess, I was the only student in third grade not to earn a Palmer Method certificate. Oh, the shame! Really. My mother was mortified, and I spent part of my summer doing handwriting exercises. The only Palmer pins I ever got I purchased on ebay.

Welcome to my world. Despite my best efforts, I was always graded "S" for "satisfactory" in penmanship-- never a "good" or "very good"

[Sparky]

As I read the thread... there are many that have been traumatized (so to speak) with an early negative penmanship or FP experience. Maybe FP is our "therapy" forum..... mmmmm

[Rich]

Is the Palmer Method the style that was taught in Catholic schools, or were there competing methods? My mom went to Catholic school and has great cursive handwriting, but no clue what it is called other than "cursive". It doesn't quite look like examples of the Palmer Method that I've seen online, but I suspect that may be because of her own modifications over time.

 

By the way, she did have to use a fountain pen and bears no ill will towards them, though she does remember the mess they could make. Apparently she really liked school and even thought about becoming a nun, lucky for me she chose a different career path!

 

Best,

Rich