Linga latina non est mortua :
On the face of it, encouraging children to learn Latin doesnt seem like the solution to our current skills crisis. Why waste valuable curriculum time on a dead language when children could be learning one thats actually spoken? The prominence of Latin in public schools is a manifestation of the gentleman amateur tradition whereby esoteric subjects are preferred to anything thats of any practical use. Surely, thats one of the causes of the crisis in the first place?But dig a little deeper and youll find plenty of evidence that this particular dead language is precisely what todays young people need if theyre going to excel in the contemporary world.
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