Why Latin?
It was a typical Saturday morning. There I was, foraging through our kitchen cabinets in search of a quick breakfast meal. My usual items were not to be found, but I happened upon one of my wife’s favorite cereals, Peanut Butter Puffins. With reluctance, I pulled the cereal box down from the cabinet and gave it a quick scan.
My eye was drawn to the vivid pictures of Puffins on the back of the box, so I started reading the story about this fascinating creature. Not long into my groggy reading I discovered that the black and white plumage of a puffin resembles a monastic robe and that is why their genus name is Fratercula which means “little brother” in Latin.
I had to rub my eyes a few times, but there it was, a sentence referring to Latin. Despite being what many people term a “dead language”, Latin is actually alive and well. It is right in front of us, every day. Even on a cereal box of all places.
Latin is so important to a well-rounded education that it is a fundamental subject in any classical school. For starters, over 50% of our English words are derived from Latin and the very tools we use to study grammar evolved from Latin.
Our “grammatical” words such as noun and verb are all Latin words developed to study and understand Latin grammar. It is quite clear that the study of Latin richly rewards those who devote their time to it. Dorothy Sayers captured this perfectly when she penned,
“I will say at once, quite firmly, that the best grounding for education is the Latin grammar. I say this not because Latin is traditional and medieval, but simply because even a rudimentary knowledge of Latin cuts down the labor and pains of learning almost any other subject by at least 50 percent.”
I’m excited for the future of our students here at Paideia as they begin to reap the rewards of studying Latin. It is something that will follow them all the days of their lives and provide a firm foundation for life-long learning.
