What do you think is the main reason why study of Latin (and Greek) has declined?
For me, change in the roles of Church in people’s lives in general probably affected study of Latin and thus Classics.
Let’s hear your opinion.
I think there is an important difference between the study of the classic languages and the study of the classics themselves. I think Latin and Greek have faded because they aren’t necessary or relevant to modern education or society. This view will probably be unpopular here. Personally, I like to study Latin, but I don’t think it’s necessary to my or anyone else’s education. Learning Greek and Latin is useful if these literatures and cultures interest you and you want to pursue them in more depth. Outside that, they are only of academic interest.
As for the decline of classics in general, I think this is a symptom of the classics being tied too closely to class status and to the ancient languages themselves. If you try to force everyone to learn Latin to study the classics then people will eventually grow tired of it and give up their studies. This is what has happened with us. I think the classics are peculiar in that, as opposed to many of the other humanistic studies, they carry an air of elitism and distinction. For the last many centuries to be educated meant (among other things) to be versed in the classics and their languages. This elitist association has probably contributed to their decline as social structure has become less outwardly stratified, and being a gentleman versed in Latin isn’t widely desirable.
Of course, there is value in the study of the classics as well as in the other liberal arts. While classics has fallen from its throne, other disciplines like English have taken its place. But I wouldn’t equate a decline in the study of Latin and Greek with a decline in the classics. The ideas and contributions of the classics exist independently of their linguistic context. And to avoid a mutually assured destruction, classic literature ought to be widely studied in translation. More interested students can then learn the languages if they find them interesting. It’s the same thing we’d do with any modern literature, like German or Russian, for example.
Anyway, that’s my two cents.
Salve yee0890
Thesaurus expresses things very well. Read Françoise Waquet, Latin or the Empire of a Sign (1998, 2002) for more.
Benè Thesaurus haec res narrat. Si plus velis, lege opus suprà citatum.
I would add that studying the classics is itself one way of protesting the insanity of the modern world. All periods have their madnesses but that doesn’t reduce the need to protest. It can also be an antidote for some individuals.
Ut addam in rebus classicis te mersare ipsum esse intercendendi actum versùm insanititatem vitae hodiernae. Omnes aetates aliquatenùs insanae sunt at durat opus intercedendo. Pro aliquos est etiam antidotum.
Looking at the question out of my own corner of the universe, I see through the twentieth century a clear rise in the value placed on technical and scientific studies for those able for them, and a focus on vocational training for those less able in their early years.
What do people think of the notion of a Victorian and post-Victorian ‘Scientific Dawn’ which seemed to disrespect the achievement of previous ages? It looks to me like a kind of anti-Renaissance, a declaration that all that is useful in the past has already been incorporated into the intellectual world, and now it is time to leave the useless baggage behind.
As for Churches, there was definitely the influence of Modernism in Catholicism despite the fact that many early modernists (and some later, too) were very well lettered men with a classsical education. Certainly a kind of ‘Year Zero’ mentality dominated many influential quarters in the post Vatican II era, and Church schools and others seemed determined to play catch-up with a particular view of the modern world, or at least an ideal of what the modern world should be. Exit the classical languages and related studies from thousands of good schools.
I’d like to know to what extent Greek had declined in Catholic schools in the years 1930 - 1960. The collapse of Latin in the same institutions is often blamed on the vernacularisation of the Liturgy, but I wonder if there is any significant truth in the assertion that it was already being maintained mainly for a utilitarian purpose: liturgical use and vocations to the priesthood and religious life for which that sacral language was necessary. Hence, the rapid collapse, rather than a gradual decline among people who were slowly losing their grip on the value of Classics.
A brief case comparison then a quick conclusion. My Catholic school officially abandoned Greek by 1982 (it only lasted so long on paper because the Classics teacher could teach it, but no one had taken it for years). By 1986, there were three pupils in a school of nine hundred taking Latin from a teacher who taught mainly English. In the nearby non-denominational school, there were three active Latin teachers, one of whom was still teaching Greek till the 1990’s (I moved away then and have no knowledge of the school since).
In my experience, whatever had caused the non-religious world to give up its appreciation of the role of the Classics in a good education was already alive and well in the Catholic Church by the mid-twentieth century. As for non-Catholic Christians, I cannot say, but I do know that many denominations in that period shared the Catholic obsession with modern theology written in various vernaculars, and neglected the patristic sources.
Salve Bedell.
In my opinion, the Renaissance rediscovery and reappreciation of ancient texts contributed to a more historically and intellectually critical mindset. There has always been critical thinking in every period but the correspondence of this with the birth of new nation states, changing social relations, and new mechanisms for the distribution of information meant that, in a European context, this came to be embodied in new institutions and, significantly, in new approaches to knowledge and wealth acquisition. The inevitable tension that this engendered between old and new institutions and mindsets is manifest in the struggles and debates that are symptomatic of any process of historical change. Thus the academic debate about the relative merits of the Ancients and the Moderns predates the nineteenth-century “Scientific Dawn”. One could reasonably argue that the “Scientific Dawn” began even as far back as the thirteenth century, but there is no doubt that, by the nineteenth century, there could be no going back to an unquestioned deference to past scholarship.
Ut opinor, scripturis antiquis denuò inveniendis, aevum renascentiae evolutionem modi cogitationis plus historiographici et critici progeneravit. Semper erant qui criticè investigabant, at unâ cum civitatibus gentium recentibus natatis, cum instrumentis novis indiciorum distribuendi, cum sertis socialibus mutatis, hi modi in Europae finibus ad institutionum inauditarum fundandum duxerunt, et perspicuè ad scientiae divitiarumque acquirendum. Ità ut vitari nequeat tormentum cum institutionibus veterioribus fieri quod se ostendit talibus in disputationibus mutando naturalibus. Ità disputatio academica de comparatione vel de meritis antiquorum et modernorum “Auroram Scientiae Modernae” saeculi undevicesimi praevenit. Auroram scientiae modernae quidem ipsam in saeculo tredecimo incipere dicas. At indubitanter, saeculo undevicesimo impossibile erat scientiae antiquorum acquiescere sine controversiâ.
If I may rant a little, a phenomenon very similar to this did arise in philosophy shortly after the end of the 19th century. It was known as logical positivism and its influence is still felt somewhat. Some philosophers were excited by the advent of powerful deductive sciences, and they applied these ideas to philosophy. The basic tenet of logical positivism is that something only counts as ‘knowledge’ and exists if verifiable truth claims can be made about it. That is, if you can’t think of a possible way to prove of your claim, even hypothetically, then it is nothing but a fantasy. Therefore, religion, metaphysics, literary and cultural values, and other interesting, non-empirical topics are supposedly worthless.
The reason logical positivism (or, ‘illogical possitivism’ as my professor called it) is bunk is because it is a completely circular and ungrounded argument. You can’t verify the tenets of logical positivism, and there is no reason put forward to accept it. This doesn’t stop it from having some popular appeal today.
Anyways, I’m not sure how this relates to the classics, but there was (and is) a definite tendency to discard such pursuits in favor of ‘utilitarian’ methods.
Classics have declined as knowledge of latin has declined. Knowledge of latin declined in part because of the latin teachers made learning latin a very tedious affair that could only appeal to the nerdiest of nerds. Professional pedagogues whose responsibility it was to foster and nourish latin promoted methods of teaching that led to latin’s current moribund condition.
For myself, I find the latin language itself more interesting than classics per se.