What Happens When We Stop Writing Letters?
There is a debate among some educators over the merits of teaching cursive writing. In an age of computers and gadgets is there still a place for something as ‘old-fashioned’ as knowing how to write legibly? (I think there is.)
There might also be a debate about something equally important–the importance of writing a letter. This week The New Yorker had a column that is worthy of pondering.
As you read the paragraph below ponder the loss of the letters from John and Abigail Adams.
If we stop writing letters, who will keep our history or dare venture upon a biography? George Washington, Oscar Wilde, T. E. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, E. B. White, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Vera Nabokov, J. P. Morgan—if any of these vivid predecessors still belong to us in some fragmented private way, it’s because of their letters or diaries (which are letters to ourselves) or thanks to some strong biography built on a ledge of letters. Twenty years ago, many o