Utile Dulci

Being a product of Catholic upbringing and schooling, I was exposed to a lot of Latin. The older form of the mass, the 'Tridentine' mass, which could only be said in Latin, was supplanted in the mid 1960s by the newer 'Novus ordo' mass which could be said in any language. If memory serves, it was probably around that same time that my school stopped having Latin classes.

Though we complained about having to learn Latin, it turns out that it is the basis for all Romance languages, such as Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and French. So for those of us who were lucky enough to take Latin, learning a Romance language in high school was made a lot easier. Thank you Sister Joseph Theresa!

I don't think there are many US high schools, even Catholic ones, that teach Latin anymore. Too bad. Not only because it gives students a solid base for learning Romance languages, but it also provides them with the basis for many of the words they need to spell and read. As Dr. Larabee in Akeelah and the Bee said, "Big words come from small words."



There are solid arguments on both sides of the aisle about the usefulness of learning Latin. I'm of the mind that building a strong foundation allows for more depth and breadth of learning later on.

"Utile Dulci"  - the useful with the agreeable. I think it's pretty obvious where I stand on this. Latin may be old school -- come to think of it, so am I -- but to my way of thinking it can lead to more agreeable things such as being a more effective communicator,  a better reader and decoder of words. It also gives students a leg up on taking the SAT; all of a sudden those unknown words can now be deciphered much easier, even if you don't know their exact meaning right out of the gate!  And lastly, it can be the foundation and springboard for learning other languages, which, and I can't stress this enough, is an important tool to have in this global society and global business world.

I know this is a pipe dream for most schools, especially public schools. Perhaps, one day, when the Powers That Be have figured out that the acquisition of random memorized pieces of information do not make for educated citizens, our community schools will have the freedom to offer a Latin class or two to their students. It may be useful, and perhaps even agreeable ;-)