Penmanship is still very useful, depending on your job, and best learned while young, even if not perfected until one matures.

I am a procedural clerk at the House of Commons, and record the decisions and provided advice to members of various committees. I draft motions on the fly without access to a computer or printer, and sometimes have to write down translations that others read into the record. My draft minutes of proceedings have to be interpreted by others and entered accurately into our database. Were I unable to write quickly and presentably, my job would be laborious, not just for me but for others as well.

In the 1960s, I was taught the Ontario School Hand, which I produced execrably until I became an army officer in the late '70s and had to produce stuff which others could read, at which time I developed my own hand that fitted my tendency to produce acute letters, a trait of both our parents. I can now produce the OSH presentably, but not as quickly as my own.