"By my lights, it is about as important for modern kids to learn cursive as it is for them to know their Roman numerals."

“The latter are kind of fun, and you have to know them to … well, for me they were for reading what the year was on ‘Looney Tunes’ opening credits, and I guess one might want to be able to know what year a building was constructed without having to ask someone. But just as those aren’t enough to impose learning Roman numerals on all schoolchildren, cursive’s time is up, now that all people will spend so much less time writing by hand.”

Types John McWhorter, in “What’s the Point of Teaching Cursive?” (NYT).