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I learned Latin in high school, I loved it, and now I’m a private tutor for high school Latin. But when I tell people what I do, the question that so often comes up is this: Why should schools still teach Latin?
I’ve heard many answers to that question over the years, and while they are good reasons, a lot of them involve things which have personally not affected me greatly. Latin is the mother of the Romance languages, so it should have been easier for me to learn French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. But I have not yet studied those languages, so I haven’t had the chance to benefit in that way. Latin appears a lot in law, but I’m not a lawyer. A lot of medical terms are Latin and Greek based, but I’m not a doctor. Some Catholic masses are conducted in Latin, but I’m not Catholic. I can read the species names of many animals, but I’m not a taxonomist.
So does that mean Latin has been wasted on me? Or on many students, for that matter?
Far from it. I believe that Latin is an excellent force for good in education. It’s more than just a party trick, or a hook to memorise technical vocabulary, or even a roundabout way to improve your Romance languages. Latin offers so much more.
1. It’s a language subject taught like no other

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