By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
In the May 1 edition of First Teachers there was a discussion of an article from the British newspaper The Telegraph by British grammarian Nevile Gwynne. Gwynne calls for a revival of the study of Latin in British schools, arguing that its study “gives a clearer understanding of the meaning and spelling of many English words; and of course it is bound to be helpful for learning any of the several European languages that are descended from Latin.”
We asked our readers to weigh in.
F.J.R. from Missouri took us up on the offer. He agrees with Gwynne: “I studied Latin for two years at St. Louis University High School in the mid-60s and, of course, like most of my classmates at the time, flailed about and questioned the whole purpose of the exercise. But as life wore on, it became more and more obvious to me just what the frustrated Jesuit instructors had in mind for us, when we had more important things on our fertile minds, such as football games, dances at the girls’ schools, and the latest Beatles album. I discovered that Latin not only helped us construct a better foundation for English grammar and writing, but also aided us in those other pesky departments like logic, reason, math, literature, and our overall cultural and intellectual development.
“Latin is such a wonderful experience and ought to be a source of enjoyment for all young minds. Sadly those days have probably passed. Modern educators seem to have come to the conclusion that time spent in ‘community service,’ wall climbing, and drivers’ ed is more important for the modern student’s educational experience.”
Agree? Disagree? We invite further response.
Another reader, W.W., wrote in response to our April 17 column on the decision by the administration at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) to defend a professor at the school who physically attacked pro-life demonstrators from Thomas Aquinas College. The pro-lifers were carrying posters with pictures of aborted fetuses in an area of UCSB set aside for demonstrations and political debate.
Vice Chancellor Michael J. Young called the posters “hurtful” and defended the professor’s actions on the grounds that the demonstrators were an “outside group” looking to “create discord that furthers a certain personal agenda” with posters of the sort that “many in our community find distressing and offensive.”
First Teachers went on to make the distinction between Vice Chancellor Young’s actions (which seem hypocritical, considering the academic left’s longstanding defense of free speech and diversity of opinion) and the support we give to Catholic colleges that prohibit the showing of the play The Vagina Monologues. W.W.’s position is that there is another way to look at the motives of the academic leftists.
“I see the point you were getting at in your column on the actions of the administration at UCSB. There is hypocrisy at work. However, I came to a slightly different conclusion. The hypocrisy at UCSB is not in the denying the expression of certain points of view, while at the same time encouraging the free expression of others, but in denying that they are engaged in censorship when they clearly are!
“What we have to keep in mind is that pro-life protests are to UCSB what performances of The Vagina Monologues are to true, faithful Catholic colleges, i.e., something anathema to the ‘faith.’ There is a ‘faith’ at UCSB, an orthodoxy the institution is committed to defend: secular, pagan, modernism. The real hypocrisy is that UCSB does not own up to this, as Catholic colleges faithful to their mission own up to their Catholic principles. Instead, UCSB lies to the public and to itself by maintaining a commitment to a free exchange of ideas, rather than arguing the merits of their viewpoint. It is precisely what George Orwell was depicting in Animal Farm. He couldn’t have been more prescient. We now live in a world on our college campuses where all ideas are valid and worthy of discussion, but some ideas are more worthy than others!
“The frightening thing about this is not that the administrators and faculty at UCSB are deceptive hypocrites. It is that they are something worse, and probably don’t even realize it. And they are training the young minds in their care to follow suit. How ironic that UCSB squared off against students of Thomas Aquinas College! At Thomas Aquinas every student has a double major: the one they declare and an accompanying major in discerning truth through right reason inspired by the Catholic faith. The students at UCSB also have a double major: their declared major and a commitment to modern pagan secularism. Aren’t we at the point where we should stop being surprised every time the modern, pagan, secularists who run our colleges persist in being — pagan, modern, secularists?”
One last topic: Thomas Sowell’s recent column about Dunbar High School in the District of Columbia. Sowell recalls how Dunbar, an all-black school during the days of legal segregation, scored higher on the district-wide tests given at the time than two of the three white high schools in the district. Students were admitted to Dunbar on the basis of an entrance test, limiting it to highly motivated and academically successful black students. During the first half of the 20th century, writes Sowell, “four-fifths of Dunbar graduates went on to college — far more than for either black or white high school graduates in the country at large during that era.” Many attended Ivy League schools, with a significant number graduating Phi Beta Kappa.
What happened? The charge of “elitism” was raised in the late 1950s. The plight of those who could not pass the exam for Dunbar was stressed rather than the achievements of those who did. The school, writes Sowell, was changed “from a selective school, to which black youngsters from anywhere in the city could apply, to a neighborhood school, located in a poor ghetto neighborhood.” The school is now just another “ghetto school with an abysmal academic record.”
Why is Dunbar in the news these days? A new Dunbar High School has been built. Some are proposing that it be changed back into what it once was, in Sowell’s words, “a city-wide selective high school rather than remain a neighborhood school.” Who is leading the opposition? “Those black spokesmen who see all issues through a racial prism.” They see “the proposed change as a way to accommodate whites who want to send their children to a public school that keeps out many ghetto blacks.”
Sowell understands the forces at work in this scenario; and the stakes: “With or without racial issues, there is no way to provide a good education for youngsters who want to learn when there are less able and more disruptive kids in the same classes. Are those who come to learn going to be sacrificed until such indefinite time as it takes for us to ‘solve’ the ‘problems’ of those who don’t?”
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Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about this and other educational issues. The e-mail address for First Teachers is fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net, and the mailing address is P.O. Box 15, Wallingford CT 06492.
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