Most of you seem to have forgotten the much maligned blue-book. Have you ever tried reading the essays of a twenty-year-old who has the messy handwriting of a six-year-old? It's excrutiating. Moreover, I noticed that students with good penmanship also had a better command of English syntax and style, as well as the material. This is, I might add, equally in evidence above. Those advocating the abolishment of cursive have generally done so without the assistance of grammar, logic, or information. There is much to be said for having a firm grasp of the basics, and this seems to include the coordination and care imposed by penmanship. In answer to Summer Anne, there are already experts to decipher old hand-writing (something written 200 or more years ago is illegible to the modern eye): they are called paleographers. It takes well over a year of intensive study to acquire the basics for a given period, so it is emphatically not something that can be handled by Wikipedia. Mjx, so that you may eat and wear shoes, someone does, in fact, still need to know how to cook and make shoes. They don't make themselves. Foreigner1 as modern, Western letter forms are based on Carolingian bookhands, *everyone's* handwriting (print and cursive) is based on a modified Carolingian.