If a person cannot read or write cursive, are they "functionally illiterate?"

[EdmondDantes_]

50. Alternatively is there a reason that those places that still use cursive actually use it or is it a relic?

I work in a field adjacent to the medical field and given how bad many people's hand writing is and how important it is to get things correct, why not use a more easily legible format? Just because something has always been done in one way doesn't mean it has to be. Might even be perceived as a failure of imagine to not change with the time. Medical offices still insisting on using faxes.

There's nothing special about reading the Declaration of Independence in cursive as opposed to reading it via Times New Roman text. You might find it prettier, but that's a personal aesthetic value not something inherent. I find physical books better, some people find e-books better, some find audio books better. To paraphrase Proust is Proust even in English.

If you want to talk about learning from the past, the only constant thing in all of history, is change. Those same founding fathers who wrote those documents you venerate were considered uneducated heathens by British aristocracy and many of them owned slaves a practice that is considered barbaric today.