Paper cuttings made by 17th-century schoolgirls discovered beneath floorboards

My wife found a cool 1896 Harper's School Geography textbook at an antique shop and got it for me, and it had the original pupil's name and signature (and date of 1897!) written on the front matter, but there are also a few other handwritten notes and the name of the school itself... it's such a neat little self-contained time capsule.

It also boggles my mind:

1. How accurate it was, in terms of map fidelity

2. The quality of the illustrations and prints, many of which are in several (what I imagine was offset?) colors!

3. How well it's held up. The cover looks essentially completely trashed, but the interior of the book's pages are almost entirely intact, and in great shape. (I'm not worried of them turning to dust in my hands, for instance.)

It's always fascinating to see just how little has changed, especially among schoolkids in nigh on 300 years!

Here's essentially the exact book I'm talking about, so it's not _that_ uncommon. Looks to be in almost identical condition, too: https://www.ebay.com/itm/184283104558

I have an "autograph book" that belonged to my great-great grandmother, with many signatures from around 1886. It's the equivalent of kids signing a yearbook.

What boggles my mind is how incredible all these kids' handwriting was. Precise, flowing, beautiful cursive.

It's also a quality cover and paper.

A few years ago I visited a high school for some competition that one of my kids was in. They had posters of each graduating class going back decades, and most of the photos had the kid's signature underneath. It was amazing to compare the signatures from the 1970s and 1980s to the modern ones. The old ones were neat, and showed a lot of individual style. As time went on they looked less confident and showed less individual variation -- most of them looked like standard elementary school cursive. The newest ones were the worst, some were a shaky-looking cursive, some were just printed.

Penmanship, and even just ordinary cursive writing, is just not taught anymore. I understand that it's hardly needed in today's world, but there's something about putting thoughts to paper by hand that enforces some deliberate thinking, unlike keyboarding or speech-to-text. Some studies show that taking class notes by hand is more effective than using a keyboard or recording.