It is truly terrifying to realize that we are on the verge of becoming a society that can no longer read its own history. With cursive being stripped from the Common Core curriculum, we are essentially locking the door to centuries of primary sources, from 17th-century manuscripts to Civil War letters and the personal correspondence of literary icons like Gwendolyn Brooks or Sherwood Anderson. Institutions like the Newberry Library are now scouting for volunteers to act as living Rosetta stones because younger generations struggle to decipher even a handwritten postcard from the 1960s. If we lose the ability to read handwriting, we become entirely dependent on a small elite of experts to tell us what our own ancestors actually wrote. This is about preserving the unmediated truth of our collective human record. #culture #history #education