The Proper Role of Latin

A recent blog of Doug's brought up the subject of teaching Latin in schools. Although it was not the main point, it got me thinking and I felt the need to clarify in some sense my own views about the teaching of Latin to elementary, middle, and high school students.

Let me first of all say that I am generally in favor of classical education. In the comparison between teaching the modern trivium versus progressive techniques, I am decidedly on the side of the classicists. In fact, I started out my understanding of classical education completely in favor of pretty much everything proposed, teaching Latin to elementary students included. It has only been in the last three years or so that my mind has been changed. Even with what I now consider to be weakenesses of classical schooling, I am philosophically a supporter of such schools as Veritas or St. Augustine.

This debate is hardly new or derived from the 1960's. The appropriate role of Latin in education had been a debated topic for some time even in the mid 1920's (see references 6 and 7), although modern debates can be rather more heated and (perhaps) juvenile (see references 4 and 5). The key questions are now, as they have been for a century, as follows: What our purpose in teaching Latin? How and when can this purpose best be achieved?

Daniel Carpenter (reference 1) deals with the first question rather thoroughly. He lays out what has been what he calls the "primary objective" of Latin education since at least the 1920's: "...classicists must first insist that the value of the study of Latin is in learning to read Latin." Carpenter rejects this as a reason when Latin has not already been studied extensively, and Phillips (reference 7) offers that reading Latin is useless for young children since "Latin literature is adult literature." It seems clear that reading ancient Latin texts are only accessible to high school students or older.

Carpenter then lists eight "ultimate objectives" which have also been upheld as reasons to study Latin. They are as follows:

1. Increased understanding of those elements of English which are related to Latin.
2. Increased ability to read, speak, and write English.
3. Development of an [sic] historical and cultural background.
4. Development of correct mental habits.
5. Development of right attitudes toward social situations.
6. Development of literary appreciation (the last two years of study).
7. Increased ability to learn other foreign languages.
8. Elementary knowledge of the simpler general principles of language structure.

Carpenter rejects 4 and 5 as rather silly, and says of 3 and 6 "[...] there are more efficient ways to achieve an understanding of the roots of our culture than through study of the Latin language." He similarly rejects the others, pointing out regarding 8 that the belief that Latin is helpful here is based on 19th century linguistics which ignore syntax, semantics, and pragmatics (the linguistic topic of study, not Deweyan foolishness).

Carpenter offers an alternative purpose to Latin education, derived from the same source as those he has just rejected. Carpenter writes that "the writers [of the 1923 Classical Investigation Report] found that the study of Latin one other important faculty, the 'ability to make formal logical analyses,' but they dismissed it as an objective, believing it 'not a suitable conscious objective of the school course in Latin.'" Carpenter disagrees, and argues persuasively that this is in fact the greatest benefit that Latin study offers to any potential student. If any of the other suggested objectives can also be achieved, so much the better.

So if this is the objective of Latin education, how and when should it take place? As far as how goes, there is a strong argument that emphasis should be on teaching students to read and sort out meanings, and not to translate original works into Latin (reference 8). However, in my estimation Abbott and Davis (reference 5) seem to offer a reasonable case that writing and speaking might be beneficial techniques in some cases.

Juan (reference 2) makes a reasonable (if not thorough) argument that teaching a modern, spoken Romance language throughout elementary school, with Latin taught in high school, is at least as good as teaching Latin first, and perhaps preferable. Landor (reference 3) makes a compelling argument that anyone wishing to pursue a liberal arts-type education would do well to study Latin in high school. This seems historically sound since throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, Latin, although occassionally taught to elementary children, was much more consistently a secondary schooling subject.

Of course, not all children should be pursuing a liberal arts education. That's not all education should be. But for those students who have expressed an interest or aptitude, taking three to five years of Latin in high school is a great way to begin learning "logical analyses." It also provides a phase-in tool from the Dialectic to the Rhetoric level of a classical education, and providing the building blocks for "ultimate objective"s 3 and 6 in college. If preceeded by a year of History of the English Language in 7th or 8th grade, Latin could well support 1 and 2. If preceeded by a language such as Spanish (the best option for modern American culture, although Chinese or Arabic might be better elsewhere) from 1st to 6th grade (or higher) before that, Latin might even help to develop an understanding of modern linguistics.

The following references shed a lot of light on the subject, and some of them should certainly be (in my opinion) on any reading list for people starting a classical school. They are all relatively brief (under 15 pages each, most under 5).

1. Reassessing the Goal of Latin Pedagogy, by Daniel P. Carpenter
   The Classical Journal © 2000 The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc.
2. Why Latin First?, by H. San Juan
   The Modern Language Journal © 1961 National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations
3. Foreign Language in Elementary Liberal Education, by R. A. Landor
   The Modern Language Journal © 1971 National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations
4. The Emperor's New Clothes: Hyperreality and the Study of Latin, by Robert J. Ball; J. D. Ellsworth
   The Modern Language Journal © 1996 National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations
5. Hyperreality and the Study of Latin: Living in a Fairy Tale World, by Martha G. Abbott; Sally Davis
   The Modern Language Journal © 1996 National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations
6. Latin as a Basis for the Study of Spanish, by Gwladys L. Williams
   Hispania © 1923 American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese
7. Spanish as a Foundation for the Study of Latin, by Walter T. Phillips
   Hispania © 1925 American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese
8. Against Teaching Composition in Classical Languages, by Robert J. Ball; J. D. Ellsworth
   The Classical Journal © 1989 The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc.

All articles are available in full on JSTOR.