Penmanship (searching for a term that encompasses both block printing and cursive) is a mixed bag. At one time, far in the distant past, my cursive handwriting was good enough that many people commented on it. Too much work on computers has resulted in serious degradation of my penmanship. Unless I consciously slow down and work at it, my cursive today is so bad that half the time I can't read it.
Conversely, my mother (born very early in the 20th century) didn't write in cursive. I have no idea where she learned it, because both her parents wrote in cursive, but my mother wrote in what I would describe as "elegant" block printing. It was very precise, lines all straight and very minor variations in letter height, quite beautiful to look at -- and absolutely indecipherable. Of course, the same has to be said about my father's cursive. Very neat and precise, every document a work of art -- as long as you didn't need to read it.
I do agree with Perd about the loss of education in the schools. When I went to high school in the late 1950s/early 1960s, my high school offered Spanish, French, German, and Latin. I'm not sure what they offer now, but I know they dropped German years ago, and I'm fairly certain they now offer Chinese (which is probably not a bad thing). But then they get into entire multi-year curricula in things like performing arts. When my daughter attended the school, one of her assignments was to go to the city where the state capital is located and attend a garden and flower show. My wife and I took her -- and we never figured out what the purpose of the assignment was.
