Our students have been surrounded by Latin lately! Grades 3-12 took the National Latin Exam last week, and this coming Thursday they will compete in the school’s Latin Tournament. Even on ordinary weeks, students can be found laboring over Latin vocabulary, paradigms, and translation exercises. Latin is pivotal for classical education at Mount Hope because it (along with Greek) is the portal to most great texts of the West. But the road to such beauty and brilliance is long, toilsome, and often frustrating. Tedious hours of study are par for the course. There is simply no way around it. Learning Latin is very hard work.
A common approach to this inevitable labor is the Mary Poppins philosophy: Add a spoonful of sugar. Make the work fun. Some Latin curricula take this to the extreme, teaching ditties and household vocabulary and little else. Other textbooks treat Latin as a code instead of a language, and students don’t learn paradigms or hard-hitting grammar. This circumvents all the painful work, but also all the chances for mastery. Fortunately, true grammar is thoroughly taught in Wheelock’s Latin, a standard college textbook used for classes at Mount Hope. It is interesting, though, that even Wheelock includes sections titled “Latina est gaudium—et utilis!” This means “Latin is fun—and useful!” These sections introduce light conversational phrases, silly idioms, and connections to modern this-and-that. But are jokes and trivia the best we can do find enjoyment in Latin?
Well, first of all, work does not have to be fun. Sometimes it is just good for us. And the hard work of Latin is satisfying in itself, like the feeling after a long hike or a day of physical labor. But even beyond that general satisfaction, Latin yields a particular abundance of beauty and pleasure for the Christian. We have a Latin heritage in the Church! We could easily establish a newer, truer “Latina est gaudium et utilis.”
For centuries, Latin was the language of the Church. Early Fathers such as Ambrose and Augustine wrote and preached in Latin. Christians around the world sang psalms and the liturgy in Latin. Even our Lutheran forefathers wrote volumes of theological writings in Latin. Music, poems, hymns—the list of Latin treasures goes on! And our students don’t have to wait until they’ve mastered Cicero to begin dusting off and polishing their Christian inheritance. With even a basic understanding of Latin, one can recognize words and phrases and grammar in a familiar psalm, or the Agnus Dei, or snippets of Augustine’s Confessions. And it is a thrill!
The world thinks that “fun” equals “trite.” It thinks that by avoiding things of great weight, especially painful things, our lives will be more enjoyable. The Christian knows that this is simply not true. It is the weighty things—our salvation in Christ, His precious Word, our lives under the crosses He sends us—that give us joy. These are worth working for and sweating for. And even though we do have fun (sometimes even silly fun) in Latin class, our students are receiving a truly happy and meaningful education. They are opening a door to rich treasures that beautifully direct them to Christ.
In Christ,
Miss Hahn
