It’s nice the ink wells were built into the desk though. Much less chance of spillage that way.

true (when we all got fountain pens, the mayhem caused by having to carry bottles of ink had to be seen to be believed) but the "public" ink wells were susceptible to the previous class putting things in them - pencil shavings were a favourite.

ooh, this all seems like another world - i haven't thought about it in years!

thanks for sharing though. i never would have thought about that as late as the 60s, the Bic roller ball style pen still wasn't around yet. I guess it took NASA trying to write in space for that to be developed. And who says the moon landings weren't worth it?!

the bic/biro pen WAS around when i started secondary school, and was used by sensible people. our teachers simply thought that water-based ink pens were more "character-building" and resulted in more readable handwriting - how wrong they were.

> our teachers simply thought that water-based ink pens were more "character-building" and resulted in more readable handwriting

In fairness, writing with a fountain pen encourages proper cursive handwriting, because it is far less physical effort. Disjointed handwriting is easier than cursive with a ballpoint, because you have to apply pressure the entire time you are writing or the ball won't roll and pick up ink.

i think this may work for an adult - i really don't think it works for a child. at least it didn't for me.

I didn't find that to be the case when I was in school. Handwriting in cursive with a fountain pen was miserable, an utterly pointless waste of valuable class time.

Really? When I first got a fountain pen in school my cursive handwriting experience was far, far better both for me and for my poor teachers.

From the lefties, we hate all you fountain pen lovers, one and all.

As a a rightie who had to write in Arabic with a fountain pen, I really do understand, though there are some inks that make this easier.

Not completely pointless. Fine motor skills need training too.

I learned writing with a fountain pen as late as 1995. We’d stopped using separate inkwells at the time though.

We had the desks with the holes in; but the dip-pen era was before my time. We used fountain pens (no ball-points). There was always a huge jar of Quink blue-black ink at the front of the class.

I had two problems with fountain pens: firstly, good ones were expensive, and the other kids stole them. Secondly, even good ones leaked; boys aged 9-13 are very active, and don't take great care of their clothes. Most of my uniform clothes ended up with huge stains of blue-black ink.

I remember using the same type of desks in Italy in the 90s. Minus the ink well, of course, because we were all using fountain pens or rollerball pens, so we effectively just had a big round hole in the top right corner of our desks.

> capture volume

doh! i meant "reservoir"!

Why were teachers so reluctant to let you use ballpoint pens?

Completely different country: because ballpoint pens not good for calligraphy. I'm still not sure why, but I heard this argument everytime.

Writing the same sentence with a fountain pen vs ballpoint, it looks much nicer with the fountain pen.

Fountain pens let you vary the width of the line depending on how much force is applied.

Unless you know you have a flexy nib, you shouldn't. Too much force can cause your tines to sproing, and then you need a new nib (or get a nibsmith to fix it, which might be more). Most of my pens have nibs that aren't designed for much line variation.

conservatism (in the form of : the kids would never learn how to write properly if they don't time their strokes with dipping the pen in the ink routine)

It is the same thinking as the "you need to start with C to become a good programmer".

They started with ink, it worked for them, so we obviously also had to.

For me it was even worse. My teachers argued that I must not use my Pelikan pen (all my classmates were on fountain pens) and write with pencil instead, because I was using to much force.

The most infuriating thing about it: I never saw a teacher using anything else than a regular pen. Strictly forbidden. Those were for grown ups.

My teachers argument was that fountain pens require more precise control of your writing force. If you start to learn with ballpoint it might mask some issues with your writing (mainly too much downforce) which can cause you problems later in life. (Such as fatique or cramps in your hand.)

I dunno, we started with the Berol handwriting pen which is basically a plastic tip. Your basic biro is not a good writing pen - they are difficult to control. The ink is thick and gloopy so it takes too much force to get going and then shoots off quickly. Modern ballpoints, from the likes of Mitsubishi and Pilot are inexpensive and much much better.

My school was using such old equipment, back in ~2000, I had desks in school with holes in them for the wells.

Ink?! When I was in school we wrote on clay tablets with reed styli. We had to maintain the styli with copper knives. Later, even the most reactionary teachers would let us use the new fancy bronze knives.

Heh, kidding aside I have all the writing implements: glass dip pens, metal dip pens, quill, even some home-made experimental pens (the one made from a plastic drinking straw is actually pretty good).

Glass pens are okay and great to clean but of course there's zero flex in the nib so it's not one that I reach for very often.

A calligrapher in the BBC series on the history of writing makes one out of a Coke can. Some day I'll get around to trying that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxUuPq3mWaU&t=3666s

>Ink?! When I was in school we wrote on clay tablets with reed styli. We had to maintain the styli with copper knives. Later, even the most reactionary teachers would let us use the new fancy bronze knives.

Copper? You was lucky! In my day we had mine our own ore and smelt it down.

JFYI:

https://tinyapps.org/blog/200702250700_why_in_my_day.html

See you and your fancy metal technologies. Chalk on slate was good enough for me and my father and his father before. That were tradition and we were glad of it.

we were dipping our hands in prey's blood and leaving marks on the cave wall. ohhh, the good old times

I went to school in UK on 80s and my primary school still had the individual desks with the lift lids and ink wells. There were two grooves along the edge of the desk for pens and pencils to sit in too. We never used the ink dip pens but I would see them in the stock room: plastic handled with a metal nib. I assume there would have been wooden handled ones in during the 70s.