dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (02/27/84)
I agree. I have often found my high school Latin (4 years) useful in many ways. Meaning of words is one. Understanding grammar and relationships between words in a sentence is another. Spelling is yet another. (E.g., "separate" not "seperate". Why? It's from the verb "paro".) Dave Sherman Toronto -- {allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsrgv!dave
julian@deepthot.UUCP (Julian Davies) (03/04/84)
I've just been reading a book about the underlying principles of Waldorf Education, and came across the interesting claim that given a choice it would be better for children to learn Greek than Latin. The primary reason is (paraphrase) Greek was the lingua franca of culture philosophy religion arts and feeling, as oopposed to Latin which was the language of the sciences and intellectual/rational thinking. This is bound up with the Waldorf philosphy of redressing an imbalance perceived in our modern Western society of being too oriented towards the intellect and too little towards the rest of the psyche. Among corrolary reasons were that Greek was the original language of the original synoptic Gospels, and reading them in the Greek would be of interest if not value. (Also that becoming acquainted with a different alphabet is of intrinsic interest and excitement for children.) Julian Davies