ROTHENBURGER — Here’s to the man who taught us to write

COLUMN — Big anniversary coming up next month, one I’d totally forgotten about.

Once in awhile, I come across a gem amongst my hoarded documents. In this case, two gems — a couple of yellowed certificates, certifying that ‘Melvin Rothenberger’ — yes, my name is spelled wrong on both of them — satisfactorily completed courses in the MacLean Method of Writing.

Unless you’re a Baby Boomer, this will mean nothing. If you’re younger than 50 you’ve probably never handwritten a letter, let alone used H.B. MacLean’s cursive style of handwriting. Maybe you can print some basic information in block letters on an application form once in awhile, and put your signature on your car insurance, but MacLean’s graceful longhand would be as foreign to you as the Chinese alphabet.

“Cursive,” by the way, refers to the joining of letters to make writing faster. H.B. MacLean lived most of his life in B.C., where he developed his system of italic handwriting that became the standard in schools across Canada.

You’d never know now that I was once proficient in it, the result of hours spent doing MacLean’s exercises, consisting mostly of row after row on sheet after sheet of paper, practicing each individual letter before being allowed the luxury of writing a complete sentence, the classic one being ‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”

The secret to the MacLean system was in the way the ascenders and descenders for each letter were formed, resulting in a sort of script that was artistic in its own way. To achieve this, you had to sweep your entire arm across the page — it definitely wasn’t all in the wrist.

One of my certificates is a “Junior Certificate,” dated June 5, 1955, presented at Oliver elementary school, and bearing the “Official H.B. MacLean Seal.” A year later, on June 25, I made it to the Bigs, earning the “Senior Certificate” as proof that I had “satisfactorily completed the Public School Course in the MacLean Method of Writing.” Both were signed by H.B. himself.

I was 12 years old.

At the time, I thought of Mr. MacLean mostly in terms of the drudgery of practice. I may as well have had to practice the piano as sit there, positioning my hand and arm just so, dipping a metal-nibbed wooden pen into an inkwell and scratching out the letter O or the letter B, or C, thousands of times. First, in capital letters, then in lower case.

But I also have a distinct memory of the pride I felt in earning those certificates.

The knock on the MacLean method was that it allegedly instilled conformity rather than encouraged creativity. The horror.

But, while MacLean could teach the basics, students of his writing were still individuals with different brains and muscles. In other words, they weren’t robots or clones. One of my treasured certificates is signed by my Grade 5 teacher E. R. (Eric) Kronlund. While his writing perfectly follows the style of H.B. MacLean, it’s boldly formed, somewhat imperfectly spaced.

T.J. (Terry) Sarell, who signed my Senior Certificate, had wider spaces between his letters. They’re a little more squat, and his ascenders look different. There’s no way you could mistake one for another.

Nevertheless, the MacLean Method gradually went out of style. Created in response to concerns about poor handwriting skills by students, the urgency went out of it as years passed. By the mid-1960s, it was beginning to lose its edge, so to speak. H.B. MacLean died in Vancouver in 1976 at 91 years of age.

Apparently there are still cells of rebellious learners who keep the MacLean methodology alive, but his legacy hangs on by a thin thread. Nowadays, of course, teachers worry if every kid in the class doesn’t have an iPad to write with. Just as today’s younger generation can’t add 2 plus 2 without a calculator, they can’t write a sentence without a tablet.

Where, I must ask, is the individuality or creativity in that? H.B. MacLean must be turning over in his grave. Come June 5, on the 60th anniversary of the day I proudly accepted my first certificate, I’ll raise a toast to the man who temporarily succeeded in teaching me how to write legibly.

Mel Rothenburger can be contacted at armchairmayor@gmail.com. He’s on Facebook.com/mrothenburger.7 and on Twitter @MelRothenburger.