In the U.S., Latin classes are rare in secondary education; they are much more common in colleges, if not widely taken. In the past, how common and popular were Latin courses? How common were they in other Anglosphere countries like the UK and Australia?
Latin was basically ubiquitous in any kind of what we would call “college preparatory” education in the English-speaking world up to at least the early 20th century, and was required for entrance to most university/college programs. (My mother in 1945 was unable to enter a “Seven Sisters” women’s college in the US because she hadn’t taken Latin.) This 1914 article cites data to the effect that only about 4% of American high-school Latin students continue the subject at the college level; I don’t know what proportion of those became college students who didn’t take Latin and what proportion simply didn’t go on to college despite having done college-prep work.
The majority of schoolchildren, of course, would have had less advanced schooling that didn’t include Latin.
If you were at a secondary school in the UK and in the “academic” streams aiming for university, Latin was widespread, and up to School Certificate/O-level (i.e., public exams taken usually at 16 as a completion of compulsory schooling until well into the 20th century, as it was considered part of a basic academic education for most universities, if not necessarily in all subjects, till quite late. Oxford and Cambridge hung on to it as an entrance requirement until well into the 1960s, at least for arts and languages subjects. I did it to O-level in 1964, and had to spend some time reviving it, and including some mediaeval Latin (much more fun, since most of the texts were reports of Bishops’ Visitations on errant priests misbehaving with their parishioners), in preparation for the Cambridge entrance exams (they still did their own then) in 1966, only they abolished the Latin requirement at the last minute.
I did Latin (and Greek) A level in 1985. There were less than a dozen of us. But I learned more about English from my Latin classes than I did in the English classes.
Interesting, but he spoils it by special pleading for the American experience of the classics, implying all the time Latin for the republican roots of the nation ( and Greek for the democratical frenzy ). Whilst every nation in Europe from Poland to Scotland studied these languages educationally and conversed in Latin as a diplomatic *lingua franca * *. And most non-Asian countries beside.
- Until Disraeli semi-declared war in Latin and no-one noticed because the British version was by then so off-key.
“By then”? Catalina de Aragón just snorted in her grave.
Well, things can always get worse.
[ The motto of school-teachers everywhere. ]
There was basically just one set of courses for people who were even thinking about going to college (about a third of the students) at my small, rural high school. I graduated from high school in 1970. I took the only language courses they offered, which was two years of Latin and two years of French. Similarly, I took the only science courses they offered (general science, biology, chemistry, and physics), the only English courses they offered (four years of them), and the only math courses they offered (first-year algebra, plane geometry, second-year algebra, and solid geometry/trigonometry). This was pretty minimal even for then. They didn’t care, since they knew that most of the students would become something like farmers and factory workers, and the few that went to college would almost certainly go to second-rate state or private colleges. I think that they replaced Latin and French by three years of Spanish since then.
I took two years of Latin in high school. Of course, that was back in the Neolithic, arguably before Latin even existed. But my daughter, MilliCal, had no problem taking Latin when she attended high school only a couple of years ago.
I went to a private Catholic high school in Toronto - my grade 9 class took half a year of Latin in 1968, then it was discontinued, replaced by a choice of Spanish or Geography. My brother, a year ahead of me, took 4 years of Latin. I assume that Latin was at this time pretty much non-existent at the high school level in public school.
(The Latin and Spanish teachers complained that part of the problem was that students entering grade 9 -high school - from public Grade 8 elementary school needed a crash course in grammar - subject, predicate, adverbs and adjectives, pronouns and prepositions, first second third person, singular and plural, various tenses, conditional, etc. - before the concepts for a foreign language could be taught. Those of us from the private elementary school had been drilled on this stuff for years.)
One relative from Philadelphia had Latin and Greek textbooks, he would have been in school there about 10 or 15 years earlier.
Latin was at one time a requirement of higher-level education, because so much of what was done at university was read in Latin. Similarly, Greek was often taught as well (for the same reason). The original reason for a “high” school in the United States was to teach those subjects necessary for a gentleman to be ready for college (in much the same way that the ancient trivium prepared a student for the quadrivium in classical and medieval times). Even though the result of the “Committee of Ten” in the late 1800s changed American high schools forever, some of the basic elements of a “college preparatory” educational program survived. Among them was the offering of Latin as a regular subject.
I took four years of Latin in high school (compressed into three years; I graduated early and convinced my Latin teacher to teach me the fourth year, primarily poetic Latin, concurrently with the third year, which was primarily prose working on more complex grammar forms). I never took Latin after that, but it stood me in good stead for my eventual law school and legal efforts, not to mention making it much easier to understand medical terminology. But my primary benefit from learning Latin turned out to be the fact that it’s a ridiculously simple language to learn the grammar of, by comparison to most any modern language, so understanding the basic ideas of inflected language through study of Latin made my later study of Russian, German, Spanish and French much, much easier.
In my high school, there were routinely two Latin I classes, distilled down to one Latin II class, each of them about 20 students large. By Latin III, there would be only 5-10 students, since having taken two years of foreign language at the time was all that was needed to get into the UC system (this was the mid-70s). By comparison, Spanish had two teachers dedicated to it. We also had a French teacher and a German teacher. The Latin teacher also taught Russian, and when asked, could teach conversational Italian and Greek. I remember him fondly.
I attended a fairly small (class size ~75) all-boys Catholic high school in the late 1970s / early 1980s.
Because we were a Catholic school, one year of Latin was a requirement, and everyone took that during their freshman year. Latin II was an elective, and out of the 75 or so in my class, I think about 15 or 20 of us took it. Latin III was technically available, but since so few boys took it, one would have had to attend the class at the all-girls school, about 5 miles away; no one in my class took it, and I’m not sure that I remember anyone taking it while I went to school there.
Another factor which no one has mentioned was the massive decline of Latin in the Catholic Church–the switch from Latin to English, etc in masses in the 1960s.
No history? Except for the history, you have described exactly what I took in my all-academic HS in Philadelphia in 1950-54. Two years Latin, 2 of French, 4 of math (exactly that combination incidentally), three of science (no general science in 9th grade) and three of history/civics.
It wasn’t so much that Latin was required for college admission as that was well-educated people were assumed to have studied. Also there was some vague (and in retrospect absurd) feeling that if you wanted to be a doctor (all well-behaved Jewish kids wanted to be doctors, or at least told their mothers that—I speak from experience), you should study Latin. So I did. I don’t recall much of it.
Until about the end of the 19th century, classes at Oxbridge were taught in Latin. When I visited University of Fribourg in 1970-71, my host told me that the Faculty of Theology had just switched from teaching in Latin to using the vernacular. Professors had to choose between German and French (Fribourg is officially bilingual, although mostly French) and one professor could not lecture in either. He was English and I don’t know what they did with him.
My niece is at grammar school now, and is taking a Latin GCSE (high school level, basically). She’s one of 3 girls in the year of 120 doing so.
I went to public (i.e. private) schools in the UK until I was 14. Latin was required at my first prep school for all students, along with French. At my second, students had the option of Latin, Spanish or German (French was required).
At my secondary school, Latin was required and I missed out on a scholarship because my Latin wasn’t advanced enough - the courses at the second prep school having started over at the beginner level.
In the Florida state/public schools I attended from 14 onwards, Latin was offered as an elective at beginner levels only.
Likewise. Though I probably would have learned even more if I had known that Quintus was Horace all along, the little scamp!
I took two years of high school Latin in the early 50’s, in fact it was the only foreign language offered at my high school. Along with touch-typing, the most important subject I took in high school. Latin is where I learned English. One does not consciously know that his own mother tongue is bound by grammar, until one learns another language with a different grammar.
Two years of Latin in JUNIOR High. So 1965-67. Midsized southern city. Latin offered throughout the system for kids in ‘college track’. It was fun.
I don’t remember if any of it was required, but four years of Latin was offered at our Catholic High School, early 80s too. Speaking of early 80s, ours was taught by a sweet tiny nun in hers. I took all four years and it still helps me with language and vocabulary.
Hari Seldon writes:
> . . . No history? . . .
Sorry, I didn’t mention that. You had to take a one-year course called American History and a second one-year course called American Government (if I recall correctly). If I further remember correctly, everybody had to take those two courses, regardless of whether you were doing college preparatory courses or not. Incidentally, the clear majority of the students were not doing college prep courses. They were in other programs called Vocational Agriculture, Home Economics, Industrial Arts, or Business. Business didn’t mean that you could go to college and get a B.A. in business. It meant that you planned to get some low-level office job that didn’t require any college training at all. In any case, there was no alternative to any of those for college prep people. There were no other languages, no honors courses, and no A.P. courses. Indeed, I suspect that if I had even mentioned the idea of honors or A.P. courses to any other student or any teacher at my high school, they would have accused me of making it up, even though they did exist at many high schools at that time.