What Was the Purpose of Cursive Handwriting?

Cursive writing began in the time of the Romans (though, actually, long before that) as people needed to write faster. The Roman letters (what we now call 'Capital' letters) were fine for inscriptions carved in stone but were a bit of a pain to make with a pen or a stylus and written script quickly evolved 'shorthand' forms of the letters which involved much more fluid forms and much less taking the pen off the paper. It was those forms - 'A' becoming 'a', 'B' becoming 'b' and so on - which eventually gave us what we call 'Lower Case' today and what we call 'Cursive' was simply a logical development where the pen is lifted from the paper even less. 'Cursive script' means 'running writing' and that's exactly what it is - a script written at a run, so to speak.

Those long flowing strokes make cursive speedier. No, kids are only taught rudimentary cursive in 3rd grade now. It’s up to them to practice at home. No time in the curriculum and not much need for it with computers.

Because you write a lot faster in cursive than in script/print, and times matters.

@mythociate I don't know was I trained to write that way or to write faster; and I write cursive style.

I have always liked to write in cursive. I wish they would still teach it in schools

The important catch of using cursive handwriting was to write faster as it would help in taking notes in classes!!