The Value of Secondary-School Latin: A Student’s View
2nd April 2023
The value of Latin is usually set forth in two main ways; first, relating to practical skills, and secondly relating to insight into the human condition, which has been the traditional aim of every Humanities subject. If these be the grounds of success or failure, and if the sample base for evaluating success or failure necessarily consists of those taking the subject, then this lack of consultation with students to see how, or whether, the subject has given them such practical skills and such insight, constitutes a major hole in the argumentation of any defender of the Classics.
Everyone, I grant, was at some point or another a student; but the crucial point is that they are not students now. By listening to current students, Classical academia in general might understand better why students do, or do not, continue to take Latin, and what benefits they derive from that subject.
In this article, I will seek to remedy this hole in the discussion in a very small way, by providing my own perspective as a secondary-school student and highlighting the key benefits that I have drawn from my study of Latin to date.
When I took beginning Greek in college, the teacher went around the class asking why we were wanting to learn classical Greek. When he got to me, I said (being a smartass) ‘To be civilized.’ He said, ‘No, you learn Latin to be civilized; you learn Greek to be educated.’ … which is precisely what a Roman would have said.