I would assume maybe it because of history and school system being shitty.
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Historically it was a requirement because you can write a lot faster like that and you hand is less stressed. So it was a useful skill.
Now depending on where you live it start to get removes as almost all long form writing is on computers and is it not as useful.
It’s a much faster way to write by hand. Computers have not been cheap enough that every student in school can be presumed to have one until very recently (and in some districts not yet). So if you have to write homework by hand, cursive is much faster than D’Nealian (what you probably call “printing”).
Why did it STOP being a requirement in schools is my question. Internationally, it’s required in elementary school, in a lot of countries.
It’s a way of writing that’s faster than trying to mimic the appearance of typed letters by hand, and despite computers and printed materials, being able to write is still a basic necessity. Linking the letters together (the basics of what cursive is), makes you actually write faster, because the brain gets used to just going with the flow of the words instead of stopping to put down each letter.
The schools try to make the kids write prettily, but it’s not about pretty as much as it is about being able to write relatively fast, and at least somewhat legibly.
Back when students still wrote with dip pens and ink, cursive was taught as a means of writing more quickly and smoothly, with less chance of ink spatter and clogging.
When ballpoint pens came along, this eliminated the ink flow problems dip pens had. By then, cursive had become tradition, and so schools looked for any reason to keep it in the curriculum (faster, helps with brain development, helps with motor skills—although the actual results of these claims are negligible).
Classes in calligraphy could provide the same motor skill training, but for some reason the association with art means school funding would be harder to come by. At this point in history, cursive classes are a relic of tradition.
Until the 1990s home computers weren’t really widely available, so people actually wrote things out by hand in large quantities. Sure in the late 1800s and beyond you could use a typewriter to be extra official, but if you ever have the chance to actually use one you’ll see why people often opted not to.
Handwriting is much faster and stresses the hand a lot less than the jerky stop-start of hand-printing.
These days it’s becoming redundant with word processing software so readily available, I’ll admit I haven’t actually handwritten anything except my name in over a decade. I’m not sure I even could anymore.
When you are writing with a quill or a fountain pen writing in cursive is cleaner. Cursive also allows you to write faster. Both of which were useful throughout history. In modernity with modern pens and pencils and the fact that many things are no longer hand written it has become a relic of tradition. Though it is useful for historians in actually reading older documents.
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