Nibs and inkwells

I've been talking about the decline of decline of cursive writing to a lot of people, and most seem to agree that the loss of speed is one drawback of knowing block letters only. I was surprised to learn that one of my very near contemporaries did, in fact, learn with a dip pen, not a fountain pen (my favorite, though far from my first, was yellow just like these). The students were graded on their handwriting, and blots, almost inevitable using this sort of pen, counted against them.