A frequent question raised in Classical Education is "why do we have Latin class? Wouldn't learning _________ be more useful?" In this article I propose the following:
The purpose of Latin class is to acquire the Latin language,
to read ancient & medieval texts,
to enjoy our heritage,
to honor our forefathers and fulfill the 5th commandment.
The purpose of any language class is for students to acquire that language. "Acquisition" here is a technical term, meaning that students will have a mental model of the target language built in the part of the brain that processes language. (For more on this, see Key Questions in Second Language Acquisition by Van Patten, et al.) Acquisition means that students can read and understand texts, at a reasonable pace and level, without needing to first translate to their native tongue.
While it may seem obvious that Latin class needs to actually lead to language acquisition, this choice will determine the structure of the class. It will have to be based on what is actually effective -- that is to say, on an input-based approach of some sort. An 'input-based' approach is where students receive enough comprehensible text in the language, for example by reading a short story consisting of several hundred words. An example of a non-input-based approach would be if students spent every class diagramming three or four difficult sentences, memorizing charts of word endings, and discussing Latin grammar using English, without ever reading a large number of complete Latin sentences.
Some Latin programs do not have the stated purpose of language acquisition, and even go so far as to state that they don't think even a moderate level of acquisition is realistic or possible. Therefore other reasons are given, such as learning Latin to learn another language, or (my personal favorite) 'training the brain' because 'Latin is hard'. Ironically, if a mental workout were the main goal of Latin class, then effective input-based methodologies should be avoided and class should be made as grueling and difficult as possible.
While a Latin program will have some ancillary benefits, such as improved English vocabulary and grammar, that is not the purpose of the class. If it were, you would be better off scrapping the whole program and just working on English specifically.
This naturally leads to a second question: why acquire the Latin language? The reason is that there is a large corpus of meaningful texts written in the Latin language. This includes not only the classic works of ancient Rome, but also many great works in the medieval period, and even works in the modern period such as Calvin's Institutes or Newton's Prīncipia.
It's popular today to in Classical Education circles to talk about the genius of C.S. Lewis as the 'last medieval' and how we need to 're-enchant' the world and recover the 'discarded image'. What better way to encounter the medievals is there than to read the works they wrote, in the language in which they were written?
Classical education1 is not a content-free approach to teaching. It isn't merely mapping grammar/logic/rhetoric stages onto child psychology2, and then filling in the blanks with whatever we want. Rather, classical education comes with a given curriculum, a set of works read down through the centuries.
These works are our heritage, in several ways. Firstly, for many of us these works were written by our physical ancestors. Secondly, for Christians the works of medieval Christendom are our shared spiritual inheritance. Even for those in Eastern rites, Latin writers such as Augustine have been highly influential. Thirdly, for Americans the classical works are ours, for they served as the educational basis for our Founding Fathers.
Does enjoying our heritage of Latin texts relate to our final cause, which is God? Yes, considered two ways.
First, by way of natural law. All societies have recognized the need to honor one's ancestors. What better way to do this than by dedicating time to reading their greatest works?
Second, by way of divine law. The 5th commandment3 is to 'honor our father and mother'. This command goes beyond just our father and mother as one must also honor their grandparents. Broadly concieved it commands the honoring our all our progenitors.
Is learning Latin required to keep the 5th commandment? Certainly not. But it is one good way to do so.
Thus a link is provided from the most proximate purpose of Latin class all the way to our final cause.
This raises the question: if part of the purpose of Latin class is to read ancient and medieval texts, are there any resources that can be used in the classroom to actually do the reading? For this reason I created my intermediate text series. It is an ongoing project aimed at providing inexpensive printed reader's editions of medieval texts suitable to intermediate students. All of the texts are also available electronically for free at my site, comprehensiblelatin.com
These texts come with a fully-parsed glossary on each facing page as well as footnotes. The text is highly legible (it is not photocopied) and is fully macronized. There are also read-along videos for some of the texts available for free on my YouTube Channel. Based on my experience, most of these texts can be entirely read by students in 1-2 semesters using about 1.5 hours of class time per week.
1I use this term broadly, some have pointed out that what Sayers advocated was really more neo-medieval than classical.
2See the Ancient Language Institute's article entitled Classical Schools Are Not Really Classical and Episode XX: The Trivium According to Dorothy Sayers of the New Humanists podcast for more discussion on this point.
3Some traditions number the 10 Commandments slightly differently.