Vere Foster Civil Service Script

[melissa59]

You're all going to think this is a silly question, but how are they distinctly different? In what ways? Could someone discuss these two styles in comparison? I've looked at Vere Foster's script here on FPN, and I was taught Palmer method in school; they appear similar to my eye...

 

Not silly at all! I find so many of the scripts to be similar until I compare them side by side, looking at each individual letter. For instance, I thought I was taught the Palmer method of writing, but in taking a closer look, the Zaner-Blosner looks more like what I learned.

 

I can't tell you all the differences between these American scripts and the Vere Foster Civil Service Script, but in looking at the examples above I see two distinct differences.

 

First, the "a" has a lead-in stroke on the VFCS script, but in the Palmer and Zaner Blosner, it doesn't--except when it is connected to a previous letter. I believe the same is true for the "c" and "d" and maybe other letters.

 

The "r" and "p" are also different. In the VFCS script, it is written similar to an italic "r" where the Palmer and Zaner-Blosner "r" looks like a deformed "h". The "p" in Palmer and Zaner-Blosner are closed, where the "p" in the UK script is open, much like some of the calligraphy writing I've seen in Caliken's post.

 

Perhaps one of the biggest differences is in the capital letters. Those in the Vere Foster Civil Service Script are so much more elegant (in my opinion).

 

If I ever get comfortable with italic printing, the Civil Service script is what I hope to adopt as my cursive. I think it's beautiful.

[_R_]

Thanks to the members who posted examples and links to the books above.

 

This hand was taught, albeit in a slightly simplified form, in schools in Ireland until fairly recently. Some schools still appear to use it, but I am unaware of the current regulations governing penmanship on the curriculum. It is worth noting that Vere Foster was a prominent educationalist in Ireland at the end of the nineteenth century, and his legacy lives on in schools as far as penmanship is concerned.

 

It is a lovely hand, and one that I endeavoured to recover recently, having been taught it in primary school, but, as a number of calligraphers and educationalists have noted, starting with the Italic revivalists of the mid-twentieth century as well as contemporary advocates such as Getty and Dubay, the loops tend to disintegrate at high speed and worsen legibility.

 

Of course, the lack of extensive practice of penmanship in schools is also partly to blame, since students do not do enough practise to actually master the hand in the first place. However, that is another topic.

 

I've put that particular ambition aside for the moment in order to focus on recovering basic legibility and 'rhythm' by practising Tom Gourdie's 'Simple Modern Hand' for the time being, but the Vere Foster hand is something I would like to achieve a degree of fluidity in once more, time permitting. It is a relatively simple yet elegant hand that has a nice 'flow' to it when writing, and may be written in either the upright or italic manner (by italic I mean slanted , of course).

 

Rosemary Sassoon's "Handwriting of the Twentieth Century" contains a number of pages on Vere Foster and his efforts in education and penmanship; it is quite interesting as she notes that his books were, in fact, available in America after becoming quite successful in the UK (starting on page 40, viewable on Google Books). Perhaps this may be of interest to some of our American members.

 

The open 'p' reminds me of the style still used in French schools (see the J. Herbin copybooks, for example). It is a convenient way to link to the next letter without having to start the ligature from under the loop of the closed 'p' which can be a somewhat clumsy manoeuvre.

 

Here are a couple of links to blogs with further pictures of the copybooks:

 

http://robertgriff.blogspot.com/2010/03/tricia-foley-gave-me-most-beautiful.html

 

http://www.writinginstruments.blogspot.com/2011/07/immaterial-handwriting.html

 

and some are available on Ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vere-Foster-Writing-Copy-Book-No-10-Ornamental-Lettering-/310418374797

[Columba Livia]

but, as a number of calligraphers and educationalists have noted, starting with the Italic revivalists of the mid-twentieth century as well as contemporary advocates such as Getty and Dubay, the loops tend to disintegrate at high speed and worsen legibility.

 

There is no inherent property of loops which causes them to magically disintegrate or become illegible at speed, it was just an unfortunate prejudice against the copperplate/Spencerian/Business writing tradition on the part of the mid 20th century Italicists and some later ones which lead them into all sorts of unfounded and misleading claims.

 

Rosemary Sassoon's "Handwriting of the Twentieth Century" contains a number of pages on Vere Foster and his efforts in education and penmanship; it is quite interesting as she notes that his books were, in fact, available in America after becoming quite successful in the UK (starting on page 40, viewable on Google Books). Perhaps this may be of interest to some of our American members.

 

Vere Foster's books had no noticeable impact or success in the United States, if they were indeed available/sold there on any serious basis. This doesn't meant they are bad or that they shouldn't be of interest to Americans however. Rosemary Sassoon's book is pretty poor and superficial when it comes to handwriting in the United States as exemplified by her confusion/conflation of copperplate with Spencerian on page 184 where she presents a Spencerian alphabet and a copperplate alphabet and labels them both Spencerian(!).

 

She also conflates/confuses business writing with the Palmer method (which is a method of teaching) on page 185 and erroneously credits Palmer with inventing business writing.

 

In addition, she followed the Johnstonian myth of a pointed quill + pressure being used for and makes the bizarre claims that lifting a quill from the page in a middle of word resulted in the ink dropping off it and that continuous cursive scripts do not work well with modern pens, when in fact the ballpoint is excellent for monoline scripts like business writing and civil service.

 

The book is good on Italic in the mid 20th century in particular, but flawed and limited in some respects.

Edited August 5, 2012 by Columba Livia

[tdzb36]

Nice , Vere Foster Civil Service Script can written with a fountain pen！it is really useful on daily life.

[_R_]

 

 

There is no inherent property of loops which causes them to magically disintegrate or become illegible at speed, it was just an unfortunate prejudice against the copperplate/Spencerian/Business writing tradition on the part of the mid 20th century Italicists and some later ones which lead them into all sorts of unfounded and misleading claims.

 

Readers - and writers - may deduce the 'magical property' for themselves. This short quote sums things up succinctly:

 

"There are many converts to the italic who think that the old copperplate alphabet was a bad alphabet. I don't think that it was. It was a good alphabet in the hands of good writers and only bad when otherwise. At any time there are always more bad writers than good writers, and many and various were the hideous misapplications of the old copperplate alphabet by the bad writers of the pre-italic time. Indeed hideous variation was encouraged as showing character - what sort of character it was always best not to inquire into."

Geoffrey Tillotson, review of Alfred Fairbank's "Handwriting Manual", 1957.

[Columba Livia]

Readers - and writers - may deduce the 'magical property' for themselves. This short quote sums things up succinctly:

 

"There are many converts to the italic who think that the old copperplate alphabet was a bad alphabet. I don't think that it was. It was a good alphabet in the hands of good writers and only bad when otherwise. At any time there are always more bad writers than good writers, and many and various were the hideous misapplications of the old copperplate alphabet by the bad writers of the pre-italic time. Indeed hideous variation was encouraged as showing character - what sort of character it was always best not to inquire into."

Geoffrey Tillotson, review of Alfred Fairbank's "Handwriting Manual", 1957.

 

Does he say that italic is a "bad alphabet" in the hands of "bad writers" or is that criticism reserved for copperplate and derived hands? The comments about "hideous variation" and "many and various were the hideous misapplications" seem unwarrantably negative too (and lacking in evidence)! I can't see any evidence or explanation in that excerpt as to why there is supposedly an inherent problem with loops disintegrating. The claim about bad writers always outnumbering good ones is the vague "kids these days!" statement that could be made anywhere, any time and any place.

 

I'm not sold on the idea of a "pre-italic time", with the corollary that he was writing in an italic time, either. Reginald Piggot did a survey of British handwriting in 1958, a year after that review, the results of which are on p101 - 103 of Rosemary Sasson's 20th Century Handwriting, and italic is vastly outnumbered by civil service, which shows some of the enduring impact of Vere Foster nearly a century after his copybooks first came out.

 

Is there a complete review anywhere that I can read? Since I assume the excerpt may not be the whole picture.

Edited August 11, 2012 by Columba Livia

[_R_]

In a word, 'skill'. Is it possible to dissociate the writing from the writer and seek inherent causes elsewhere? As for the 'kids', perhaps it is the teachers and the 'system' who are at fault.

 

The full review may be found on Jstor, if you have access, and you will also find there an interesting American assessment of Piggot's report.

 

In light of the relativistic educational approaches now prevailing, I think the remarks on 'character' are fully warranted. Kate Gladstone's comments about the known aversion of graphologists to italic are also pertinent to that line of inquiry.

[Columba Livia]

and you will also find there an interesting American assessment of Piggot's report.

 

This one, right?

 

Sadly, I do not have access to Jstor, but I purchased access to that article, and to be sure, that was $10 well spent. For the record, In Rosemary Sassoon's "Handwriting of the 20th Century" she presents a 1957 survey of British handwriting, conducted by Reginald Piggott and published in his book "Handwriting, A National Survey", which also promoted italic handwriting.

 

Frank N. Freeman wrote an article, "On Italic Handwriting", published in The Elementary School Journal in 1960 where he looked at Piggot's book and Italic handwriting. It turns out that Piggott's national survey has some serious problems.

 

First, Piggott says that civil service handwriting has a high degree of legibility and can be written with reasonable speed, then a few pages later he says that it cannot be written quickly if it is to be legible. He contracts himself.

 

Pigott said that Italic "has the distinct advantage (in its model form) of being a hundred-per-cent legible due to the complete simplicity of the letters". Freeman says Piggott is using a dual standard for legibility: italic in its model form and italic as it is actually written. All styles are completely legible in their model form but handwriting has to be read as it is written, not as it appears. Therefore, testing the legibility of a style requires samples from a large number of randomly selected individuals writing under comparable conditions. Piggott did not attempt such a test.

 

Lack of statistics (just %s given, no actual numbers!), bad methodology and an entirely subjective criteria for legibility (judged by Pigott alone with no information given as to how he decided legibility) on the national handwriting survey meant that "Piggott's findings tell us little or nothing about the value of the Italic style. He could have compared the legibility of this style with that of other styles. Even if we gave limited credence to the judgement of legibility, a comparison would give us some basis for evaluation. Since the author's main interest is to promote the Italic style, it is strange that he did not take this opportunity to test its merits. As it is, he gives no statistical evidence whatever about its advantages".

 

And three more pertinent statements Freeman made:

 

"Since the claim to superior legibility of Italic writing rests on shaky evidence, we suspect that the preference

for this style is due largely to admiration for its aesthetic qualities, not its practical advantages".

 

"In my judgement, Italic handwriting, like vertical writing, would not have the overwhelming superiority in legibility that is claimed for it. Italic handwriting, I believe, would fail to use the fluent, easy, and effective movement that has been developed and is used in the current American cursive style. My judgement is based on the history of the development of handwriting in this country and on various scientific experiments".

 

"The need is for a reform in teaching rather than a revolution in style".

 

Thanks for mentioning jstor there, since that article is excellent stuff for anyone looking for an accurate and balanced information on the practice and history of handwriting.

Edited August 12, 2012 by Columba Livia

[SheilaMag]

Thanks for the link to the New Civil Service Copy Book.

 

A group of retired people in Ireland have started a Shared Learning project to find out more and publicise the work of Vere Foster. Apart from producing the copy and drawing books he raised money, mostly from his own funds, to send 25,000 Irish girls to America in the mid 19th century.

 

We are looking at the many facets of his life and would like to get in touch with anyone who has a story to tell about him. For example he funded a lot of writing competitions, not just in Ireland but worldwide, using the income from the copy books. He then got into a big dispute with Marcus Ward, the printer, and there was a court case which we have yet to explore.

 

We have set up a website http://verefoster.info where we are gathering together all we can find out about him and will post the link.

[d.b]

Great thread and a compliment to the forum that I, a new member , followed a google search to where I should have begun!

 

I was educated in Australia and in the mid 50s was "taught" copperplate.

Well, not exactly writing class spent about a week on a character/ letter.

The letter was placed in perfect copperplate by the teacher on the left hand side of the black board where it remained for the week

I still remember being confronted by the lower case . "f" and being horrified by its difficulty

Being s lefty I never conquered copperplate

But nor did anyone else, nor do I think we were expected to it was a perfect form to be admired

My grandfather on the other hand educated in the same system circa 1900 was renowned for his dip pen copperplate just made me feel worse

In 70s his acceptance of my wedding invitation was shown to me in amazement by my father in law who was in awe of it.

 

I think the mongrel result weir most writers was a loopy cursive

I failed "writing" every year in primary school

[Smagee9]

Hello. A group of U3A members in Northern Ireland are researching Vere Foster and would like to find out when and where in the world his copy books were used. For details of our research see http://verefoster.info.

[kend99]

I recently found five useable Vere Foster copybooks at the Public Records Office (PRONI) in Belfast. Three are used and two are unused. Since the books were published well into the middle of the 20^th century, I don’t think I can legally share the copies I had made.

 

However, anyone can request to see them after getting a free photo ID at PRONI, and one must handle the documents carefully under the eyes of “invigilators”. The reading room also has a high resolution overhead digital camera for making copies for 40p per image, I think. Two facing pages fit on a 300 dpi image and the books lie flat.

 

If you’re not in Northern Ireland, many professional genealogists there will provide document delivery services from PRONI (most practically live there) at relatively low rates. Just give them the PRONI # of what you want copied. I had three books copied and emailed to me for US$36. Here’s a list of what I found with brief comments.

 

By the way, the Bold style is more upright and with wider letter spacing than the Medium style, while Medium is a better choice for day to day writing. However, it’s not a huge difference. Any one of these combined with the mostly complete book found at http://www.fulltable.com/VTS/a/artman/wr.htm should get you off to a strong start.

 

PRONI # Title Notes

D1213/10 Medium No. 11 Unused; maxims with medium length words

D1377/2 Medium No. 5 Used; maxims with medium words

D1377/3 Bold No. 6 Used; maxims with short words

D2585/6/C/2 Bold No. 1 Slightly used; intro exercises & lowercase

D2924/5A Medium No. 8 Unused; maxims with longer words