The Case for Latin

In the “good old days” in the United States, as in Europe, which supplied the model, anyone who went to a secondary school and college studied Latin as a matter of course. Even in the first years of this century, when a half million students were enrolled in all our public high schools, fully half of them were still studying Latin. Those days are gone, and will never return. To regret their passing is to regret both mass education and mankind's phenomenal increase in scientific knowledge. Moreover, our world has shrunk while America's role in it has grown, and lately our society has recognized the increasing relevance of studying modern foreign languages. What, then, is the future place of Latin in American education? As one who long ago was taught both Latin and Greek, I want to try to answer this question as candidly and as objectively as I can.