I have an old school exercise book of my grandmother's. It's dated 1900, so she was twelve at the time. Here are some pages from it. Two years later, she was what would now be called a teaching assistant. She never in her life had any formal qualifications, but she was a very intelligent and had a wide range of knowledge. She live to age 93 and I still miss her.

I wonder if that counts as Calligraphy. Very nice writing for a 12 year old.

lovely writing,does look like calligraphy.

Its great that you still have it in the family.

I find it very interesting that the teacher corrected "I know there is lots of bread under the counter" to "...there are lots of bread..." I doubt that many teachers today would catch that?

Perhaps I'm about to prove I'm a thicko, shouldn't it be " I know there is a lot of bread under the counter" bread is not plural, or there are lots of loaves, if indeed they had or called them loaves at that time.

I'm in agreement with Bert; either of his constructions would be better.
I've always thought that the teacher's correction is wrong; it certainly reads awkwardly.
However, the expression "there's lots of bread under the counter" is unremarkable, even though "there's" is the contraction of "there is".
Incidentally I don't agree with the comma the teacher inserted in the piece; a comma should not generally precede the word "and".
An unspotted mistake is the change of Polly's sex.
I remember my boys being in fits of laughter when I read this to them when they were small.
As to whether this is calligraphy, it was the standard taught in those times and would have been used almost as standard: even the writing on the arithmetic page is almost as good.
The word in the Greek simply means "beautiful writing"

I think that this was the standard to which writing was taught back then. It is very similar to my father's who was born in 1906, the open bottomed small "p" was very common.
Copperplate was it not.

But part of the problems with the education systems of that time were things like being finicky about handwriting. Some people just don't have the co-ordination to do that, but may have other skills. I think there is far more opportunity for individual skills now, but overall the drop in expectations are horrendous.

Full marks to art and design these days, the only subjects that seems to have raised the bar.

Once systems start measuring and setting targets for quality, you can guarantee the outcome is far from optimal.

Very nicely put

The "are" v. "is" may be debatable but since the verb here refers to the word "lots" (plural) and not bread (singular) then the teacher may be correct. If she had said "There is a lot of bread" then that would be different...

The comma correction may actually be correct too. It is not incorrect to use a comma before 'and' if the 'and' joins two 'independent clauses'. The second clause here ("summoned the baker") can be considered to be an independent clause (although literally not, as it has no subject before the verb) because the subject "(he) summoned the baker" is implied...

Finally, I have to add that I reckon yes, standards have indeed slipped! Not only as regards the handwriting (which is just STUNNING!) but also, we wouldn't be discussing such minutiae of English grammar otherwise, would we?

Note, there are another two instances of ", and" in the 3rd sentence of the same Composition. These are also correct, I do believe?

Isn't the comma before 'and' called an Oxford comma?

I agree with DD - expectations have dropped leaving standards to fight for survival.

Oxford (a.k.a. Serial Comma) isn't quite the same thing:

The Oxford (or serial) comma is the comma that precedes the conjunction before the final item in a list of three or more items. e.g. "Sausage, egg, and chips.."

Of course, a hundred & more years ago, there was so much less to learn; much more time could be devoted to the basic "3R's", which is so lacking these days. I regret that I've ceased to be surprised by mis-spelling & defective grammar (I don't think it's taught these days & don't get me started on the mis-use of the apostrophe).
Oh,BTW, DD, it's "the drop in expectations is horrendous".

@CVCVCV: point re. comma/and is taken, which is why I wrote "generally". Nice to know that at least some others here have a good grasp of English grammar. (I still don't like that particular comma though).

This is by the same person 45 years later, when she was 57. The handwriting is totally different, so I suppose the "calligraphy" took too long for everyday use.
The second letter is from a friend in the R.A.F. who really did write like that as a matter of course.
Finally, a picture of Gran when she was a children's nurse.

Even when I first learned cursive writing (1959 or thereabouts), we were still taught to form the letters just like in your original 1900 example (except by then, we weren't expected to use the older-fashioned 'r'). To start with, we had to draw pencil guidelines across the paper and make each letter exactly the same height, each descender the same depth, etc. All 'ascenders' had to have the same size and shape of loop (and the 'z' was still a descender!) We were also forbidden to use those terrible, new-fangled, ball-point pens, it had to be a proper fountain pen! (anything else was said to "ruin your handwriting"!!)
However, I think it was largely understood that once you'd learned and mastered the "official" way, then, individual style was allowed to gradually creep in until everyone's handwriting would eventually be in their own, unique style. There were some schools that taught "italic" style instead of cursive though - so it would appear that your friend in the R.A.F. presumably, went to such a school?
I guess that back in the 1800s and early 1900s, people who had to write for a living, such as bookkeepers, accountants, or whatever, were expected to stick as closely to the 'official', cursive, style as possible - in the interests of legibility.
Now that we mostly print out everything, I wonder if "proper" handwriting is much used any more, for anything more than jotting notes or writing out a shopping list?!

Beautiful writing

Slightly off topic.
Around 1900 when my nan was in school,she told me that left-handed children used to get rapped over the knuckles with a ruler
to make them write with their right hands.
Just wondering whether this was a standard thing in schools then and if so when did it stop.

ps
Is cursive Writing (joined-up writing) still taught in schools with the correct capitals,which I must admit I don't use myself usually I have the capital seperate from the rest of the word

It might be worth adding that although, yes, back then they were finicky about what today, may seem trivial things like "good handwriting" but if you think about it, "having good handwriting" back then, would quite likely have actually been a qualification for some jobs...! So in their own way, they were still fulfilling one of the stated aims of an education (to equip you for getting a job)?

My grandad whose 90 has beautiful handwriting-very calligraphic.

My sister's husband is about 60 and left-handed and was indeed rapped on the knuckles and forced to write right-handed, in his early years, so it was still going on in the 1950s!

same thing happened to me and that was around 1974 when i started school, no wonder i didn't like teachers
i'm still left handed mind.

at the moment i'm ploughing my way through someone's medical/social services records and some of the hand writing is that bad i've had 7-8 pages so far that have been totally illegible!!

Who is 90!

This is an extract I took from (I think) St. George's school log book of around 1906 which sets out some of the school rules:

1. Pupils must stand up to answer questions and wait for permission to speak
2. Pupils must call teachers "Sir" or "Ma'am";.
3. Pupils must stand when an adult enters the room.
4. Pupils must use the right hand at all times for writing.
5. Girls will learn needlework and boys will learn technical drawing.
6. Prizes will be given for good attendance.
7. Pupils must not put their hands up unless told they can do so.
8. Pupils must not ask questions.
9. Talking and fidgeting will be punished.
10. Children who truant, behave badly or do poor work will be caned

Using the right hand for writing was obviously considered important enough to merit it being mandatory.

Just a bit before I went to St. Georges then! Having said that, we were not allowed to use ball point pens at first.

That’s an interesting point about not being allowed to use ballpoint pens, tatey. One of the things that struck me about chriskay’s grandmother’s writing (apart from it being quite beautiful) is how even the ink is. I would have thought that in 1900 children would still have been using pens with scratchy nibs and dipping them into the old ink wells (and “blotting their copybooks”). I thought that mass production and widespread adoption of fountain pens did not take place until the first decades of the 20th centuries and it took time for them to be accepted by schools.

I would echo Tatey's comment re: pens. When I first went to Woodchurch Road Primary School, you had to use the "School Pen". This was a dip pen with plain wood stem. Some nibs were less "scratchy" than others and you could produce a reasonable result. Only when your writing was deemed good enough could you use the new fangled "Biro's".

With the gift of hindsight, this probably wasn't the way to go !

Interesting thread, couple of points ....

@Chriskay - that was an amazing spot, it rolled off the tongue nicely as it was, perhaps I should have written "the drops in expectations are horrendous" but I think that is incorrect too, can both words be plural?

@Derekdwc - Capital C which is often written the same as a script C, however, it was hammered into me differently, the capital C should have a raised loop and does not look dissimilar to a small cursive b but without the end hook. The explanation I was given is that it should be started at the bottom left of the character to flow on from a full stop or previous character.

At Wirral G.S. when on detention, we had to write reams in that beautiful handwriting. We were not permitted to use ball point pens either and most of our parents couldn't afford the expensive fountain pens.
On a lighter note, I always found it very funny that the handyman's name was Mr. Phillpots and he used to come round filling the ink wells. I could never understand why none of the other girls found this amusing.
N.B. Note the absence of a comma before "and".

Exactly that, only in our school Biro's were not allowed at all.

I was made to write right-handed in late 40's / early 50's at Highfield School in Bidston Rd. Leads to some confusion when you are basically a leftie. I think in those days it was not regarded as natural in some quarters.
Biros were verboten at later schools as well in early 60's.
The primary writing skill nowadays could to some extent the use of a keyboard and using Microsoft english !!

Nothing wrong with that if there was more than one drop: maybe there was one last year and one the year before.

BTW, I spot these things because I was trained in proofreading.

I remember, at Well Lane school, having an Onoto Ink Pencil. this didn't have a nib; instead, it had a fine hollow tube with a wire down the centre, which sealed the tube until you applied a little pressure.
Onoto were a part of De La Rue and made a range of fountain pens and other writing instruments.

Ah Yes! the scratchy school pens. I was even "inkwell monitor" at one time!

Ink drinking contests,how disgusting.