Articles From The Classical Teacher

Taking Latin Seriously
by Cheryl Lowe (about her)

If homeschoolers are going to consider taking Latin, they should consider taking it seriously. Taking Latin and the Trivium seriously means putting real time and effort into mastering Latin grammar--in the grammar stage. The best plan for achieving this goal can be found in the teaching practices of past centuries, when grammar schools taught Latin grammar--and little else. In these schools, Latin instruction began around age 8 and was completed about age 14. Latin was the center and the focus of the grammar school years, not an add-on to an already overloaded curriculum. Why was so much emphasis placed on what some now call a "dead language?" Because Latin teaches so much about English grammar, vocabulary, spelling, history, and culture, it is a nearly complete course in and of itself. It makes the modern bevy of textbooks, workbooks, and subjects redundant. 

     More than a decade ago, I began to try my hand at the forgotten art of teaching Latin grammar to students in grades 3-8. I knew that middle and high school students learn English grammar with much difficulty and little success, yet up until the 20th century students regularly completed the much more difficult Latin grammar before high school. How could this be? Were students a lot smarter in the past? 

     The key to this riddle is found in the nature of the two languages (Latin and English) and in the inherent difficulty of understanding grammar by analyzing one's own language. This problem was pointed out years ago by R.W. Livingstone: 

"In English, grammar study is artificial, we know the language already and have no real need to dissect it; while in Latin we must master the grammar in order to understand the language at all, and the study is therefore spontaneous. Again, if our object is to train exactness of thought, modern languages are far inferior to Latin, which has, in a unique degree, in a degree no modern language exhibits, that logical quality of which so much is said in these discussions. He (the Roman) disciplined his thought as he disciplined himself; his words are drilled as rigidly as were his legions, and march with the same regularity and precision. Modern languages, and English most of all, are lax and individualistic; in our grammar, as in our politics, we are nonconforming, dissenting, lenient...; we have almost as many exceptions as rules..In the ideal language, law is supreme; Reason governs its grammar and the expression is exactly measured and fitted to the thought which it expresses. Latin is such a language." 

     Completing Latin grammar in the grammar and logic stages and reading Latin classics in the rhetoric stage was the norm for centuries: it is the true plan of the trivium. It is a goal that I have achieved with many of the homeschoolers I have taught in the last decade, and it is a goal that you can achieve also. There are two keys to success: A teacher dedicated to learning and teaching Latin, and the right materials. Memoria Press can supply the materials; you must supply the dedication.

Cheryl Lowe is that author of Latina Christiana I and Latina Christiana II, an introduction to Christian Latin, recommended for grades 3 and up.