Why Latin is not a dead language but a window into a vibrant world.

The common understanding of a dead language is one that is no longer spoken in daily life and if you check dictionary.com the example given is Latin. Growing up I always knew I wanted to learn Latin because it just seemed so cool. It was the root of multiple languages and so many words. This is not surprising considering that Latin was the spoken language of the Romans who at one time conquered land that spanned three continents. Still to this day words for commerce, medicine, and other fields have terms that come from ancient Latin words. 

Why then is there a modern aversion to learning it that is resulting in High Schools and Universities cutting their programs and channeling funds into others? Perhaps the simplest answer is the current trend in education away from memorization which is a shame because memorization is a skill and one that is needed in life. The ability to know something off the top of one’s head is a time saver rather than pulling out one’s phone and quickly typing a question into a search engine and waiting for an answer (which without a foundation how do you even know if the information is correct?) As well as the current belief that Chinese is useful because of being helpful for business (which was the same belief that was held in the 1980s about Japanese my how trends change over the decades). As well as the fact that Latin naturally breeds discipline in order to be successful at it. Even more so if students are exposed to Roman culture. 

The Roman virtues were qualities that citizens were to aspire to throughout their life. In many aspects it was a foundational stone for a higher power. It was something to cling to and have belief in because it was something higher than the individual alone. With the world seeming to crumble all around us after the pandemic these values are perhaps more important now. These virtues represented both private and public life. They are also where the Christian virtues came from because of the influence of the Roman world. They are still things to aspire to in the modern age. Character and integrity are timeless regardless of what is going on in the world. The idea of becoming educated was the idea of dedicating oneself to the cultivation of these virtues; dignitas, pietas, gravitas, prudentia, and veritas, just to name a few. These words show up in English as dignity, piety, gravity, prudence, and verity. The Roman equivalent contains so much more than what the watered down version of the English conveys. Piety is now equated with merely being religious while the Roman understanding of that virtue was duty to a higher power to the point to the point of personal sacrifice. Talk about commitment to something larger than oneself. Prudentia was the ability to understand the past, present, and future and act accordingly with that foresight. It was directional and sure not anxiety driven. In many respects it was an ability to see the big picture as well as the long term consequences of something. In a day and age of instant gratification prudence would be a useful skill to have let along virtue to embody.

The point is that in studying Latin and the culture of the Ancient Romans there are benefits to students not just from an academic level but also one of character. The certainty of character that these virtues instill is one that lasts for a lifetime and can never be taken away. It is something to strive for and attempt to live up to that is very much needed in our world today.

What is an education?

Dictionary.com defines an education as “the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life. [T]he act or process of imparting or acquiring particular knowledge or skills, as for a profession”. The reason I chose this definition out of the more traditional Oxford Dictionary of “a process of teaching, training and learning, especially in schools, colleges or universities, to improve knowledge and develop skills” is because the former clearly outlines education as a personal endeavor while the latter focuses more on traditional ideas.

I don’t know when we got away from the original idea that education is about the individual and each education is an individual experience as opposed to this cookie cutter factory model approach. An argument actually can be made for how the United States started off modeling their education system after the Prussians (which is why we still call it Kindergarten which is literally German for Children’s Garden) and then later got a little too invested in Scientific Management and turned it into a factory system complete with being stuck in one place for the entirety of the day. The idea of treating schools as an extension of a business is still commonplace today where administrators are hired for having a degree in both business and education (with a larger emphasis on business). These two things are not actually inclusive of each other. They also negate the idea that learning can and does take place outside of an educational institution.

The pandemic and its immediate need to switch to Virtual learning was at best a mess and at worst a disaster. The interesting thing is that it shouldn’t have been. People have been earning online degrees from Universities for decades and even correspondence courses were commonplace especially for those in rural areas. Let alone kids have been homeschooled for forever and that does not fit the traditional educational model. Virtual learning does and can work. So why didn’t it? The emergency aspect of having to switch over to virtual without much warning meant poor planning. There also is the problem with American public schools in general. The current teacher shortage isn’t a surprise to anyone who works in the field. The system has been broken for years and individual patch jobs are no longer sufficient. 

There is a cultural shift towards entitlement and increased anxiety about education in general. Parents are worried about making sure their children get into the right colleges for their future. Everything is goal orientated towards a specific trajectory which is typically college where the process and the journey get lost along the way. To go back to the earlier definitions there is a clear agreement by both that an education is about the acquiring of skills and knowledge. There is no ending to it. An education is something you build towards. There is a well known maxim that is often attributed to Mark Twain but was originated by a writer named Grant Allen and it simply is “don’t let your schooling interfere with your education” which is something everyone should always seek to keep in mind. The purpose of schooling is to model individuals into productive members of society. Schooling is about the benefit of the country or society, not the benefit of the individual solely. It is no surprise that as a sense of entitlement has risen in the country, schools have been criticized and looked at with suspicion. There is a very strong reason why they should be which I’m sure I will explore at a later date. However, there is a general neglecting of personal responsibility and accountability. No one is going to be as invested in your own success and happiness as you are. The word educator is Latin in origin and comes from e which means out of and ducere which means to lead. So literally an educator or an education is what is being led out of you. So everything is innately in you. It’s just a matter of bringing your talents and strengths to the surface. The skill building is for shoring up weaknesses and improving strengths. But the idea is to be continually growing because well you’re going to be doing it anyway. Wouldn’t it just be better to be aware of and directing it?