Tag Archives: Latin

How Can I Teach Latin if I Don’t Know it Myself?

There are a lot of good reasons for thinking that Latin should be restored to its former place of honor as the Basic Subject in the elementary years. In previous issues of the Classical Teacher, I talked about some of these. But knowing that you should teach it and knowing how to teach it are […]

Greek to You… Is Classical Education Really Dead?

Greek

  Kathryn Jean Lopez: When you write about classical education, you mean more than learning enough Latin to help with the SATs. What is a classical education? Tracy Lee Simmons: This was the Humanist’s education, in the sense in which Erasmus and Thomas More were Humanists. A classical education used to mean simply a curriculum based upon […]

In Defense of Latin

Defense

SOME CRITICS HAVE SAID that the value of Roman literature is that it has been the vehicle which conveyed Greek ideas to the world. The Romans took their art and, as far as their civilization rests on these, their civilization from Greece. Why, then, do we study Latin? Some of the reasons are given by Cicero […]

An Apology for Latin and Math

Many who are attracted to the idea of a classical education don’t know exactly why, nor do they understand the necessity for Latin, or at least so much of it. A little bit of Latin is a good thing, but every year? Spinach is a good thing, but every day? I think five decades of […]

The 5 Little Lashbrooks and How They Grew

    The 5 Little Lashbrooks And How They Grew by Martin Cothran Once upon a time, in a beautiful valley in central Pennsylvania, there lived two young girls who loved animals, flowers, cooking, gardening, painting—and books. And writing. And music. Oh, and also sitting around having deep conversations with friends and going on walks in the countryside. At least […]

The Best Way to Develop Your Child’s Mind: Latin + Math (Part I)

Many who are attracted to the idea of a classical education don’t know exactly why, nor do they understand the necessity for Latin, or at least so much of it. A little bit of Latin is a good thing, but every year? Spinach is a good thing, but every day? I think five decades of fads and experiments have […]

The Best Way to Develop Your Child’s Mind: Latin + Math (Part II)

In our last catalog, I discussed how math develops the intellectual powers of the mind as no other subject can. (Read Part I here.) Now I’d like to explain how Latin is comparable to and balances the rigorous, challenging, cumulative, and formative study of math. Math is important, but it is secondary to language skills. […]

The Greatest Single Defect of My Own Latin Education

  Part I: Dorothy Sayers speaks about her experience learning Latin I was born at Oxford, in the fourth year before Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.  My father was at that time Headmaster of the Cathedral Choir School, where it was part of his duty to instruct small demons with angel-voices in the elements of the […]

Latin: The Basic Subject

Have you ever read Good-bye Mr. Chips or Anne of Green Gables? If so, you may have noticed that the students seemed to spend a lot of time studying Latin grammar and that this study was completed before high school. In fact, this is where the name “grammar school” came from: from the days when the most important […]

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