NCLG

The Recent Growth and Value of Latin for Secondary Schools

Students of Latin develop skills and strategies for acquiring new vocabulary and sentence structures, which increase their readiness to acquire other languages as needed. Latin helps cultivate such mental processes as alertness, attention to detail, memory, logic, and critical reasoning. High technology and service companies that hire liberal arts majors seek employees who can "think on their feet", write clear reports, and quickly master new concepts and technical vocabularies. Latin is useful for such professions as law, insurance, medicine, biology, fictional and technical writing, library science, or management. Students of English, History, Philosophy, Comparative Literature, and Modern Languages find that a background in Latin, ancient Greek or Graeco-Roman civilization can greatly expand the boundaries of their subjects.

Many public and private schools are looking for ways to stabilize and improve student reading scores in English on standardized tests. Latin contributes to the literacy of students by teaching them how language works, by teaching students grammatical structures far different from English. Moreover, Latin vocabulary is easy for speakers of English to acquire because over 65% of all English words come from Latin as do 90% of those over two syllables. Latin is also the basis of 75-80% of all Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese words. Hence, students gain transferable vocabulary and language concepts for future language study at the same time as they improve their English skills.

One indication of the enhanced verbal skills of Latin students is their consistently high performance on the SAT Achievement Test. In 1997 Latin students had a nationwide mean score on the verbal portion of the SAT of 647, which is 142 points higher than the national average of 505 for all students. Furthermore, Latin students outperformed students of all other languages, including German and Russian, equally challenging languages, but ones that do not offer as many transferable skills for English. Spanish students scored 581 and French students 623. It's a similar pattern year after year. Informed students and their parents are looking for proven ways to increase the students' speaking, reading, and writing skills for college admissions and future careers.

Of practical use to students is the academic edge that one has with Latin on his transcript, when applying to a four-year college or university. A national survey of college admissions offices across the U.S., published in Classical Outlook in 1991, shows that over 61% of all colleges and universities viewed a student with two years of Latin or ancient Greek as either "somewhat stronger" or "much stronger" a candidate for acceptance than other qualified applicants. Why? Because Latin is widely recognized as a challenging elective that develops verbal skills, mental precision, and good study habits. Moreover, an almost unanimous 98.6% of universities surveyed recognize Latin as a language that meets their foreign language requirements for college entrance.

A study of the language and culture enables anyone to participate in traditions shared by North and South Americans, Europeans, and many third world nations. The Roman statesman and orator Cicero said, "Whoever is ignorant of the past remains forever a child." A broader prospective can inform, enrich and inspire one's experience of the present. People who will be working in business or the sciences can benefit from an historical perspective and access to a record of significant human achievements. One learns from the successes and failures of the past. Many political, social, literary, and artistic endeavors have already been tried and the results are known. Our Graeco-Roman heritage is one that we share with 57 nations on four continents, all of which derived their language and/or culture from the Romans.

In a nationwide survey of public high school enrollments in foreign languages by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, 189,000 students studied Latin in 1994-95, up from 164,000 in 1990-1991. Moreover, the number of students studying Latin in public middle schools increased dramatically from 12,000 in 1985 to over 25,000 in 1994. Thousands of elementary school children study Latin in various innovative programs in inner city and private schools, where studies have shown significant increases in English reading scores of students on national standardized tests, as compared with control groups with no Latin.

In 1996 the National Committee for Latin and Greek conducted the first nationwide survey of private secondary school Latin enrollments. With only a 15% rate of return, we established that at least an additional 44,000 students were studying Latin. Student participation in the National Junior Classical League clubs on secondary school campuses coast to coast has increased about 57% from 32,000 in 1980 to 56,000 in 1997. Students compete in regional, state and national contests where they demonstrate their command of the Latin language, oratory, English derivatives, Greek myth and Roman history, art, civilization and daily life. Students especially enjoy the lively Certamen contests (Latin college bowl quizzes), ancient athletics, chariot racing, and the traditional Roman banquet. In spring of 1998 over 103,000 students took the National Latin Exam, up from 53,000 in 1985.

So why not give your students an edge in English skill, language acquisition, and favored status for college admissions? Your students can benefit from a language that offers so much.

Virginia Barrett
National Committee for Latin and Greek

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