Lents My general take on it: it’s about as useful and important as learning music. If you’re the kind of person who thinks we should just get rid of music, I think you’ll want to dump Latin too, and for the same reasons.
One of the commenters asked, “I wonder how many criminals have taken Latin.” That would be an interesting survey question, because we all know the answer. I don’t think, however, that cause-effect thinking can be rigorously applied to that bit of statistical knowledge. Still would make a good Freakonomics piece. And who knows, maybe we could find a few jailed classicists who would make interesting stories in themselves.
On education in general: the Brits appear to be following the basic No Child Left Behind principle: let’s cut all the extraneous subjects as a response to failures in math and English. My suspicion is that this is one of those obvious courses of action that ends up being very ill-advised. Learning rarely requires more time; what it requires is attention, which is the product of motivation. Motivation, interestingly enough, in one subject can actually help you in another: excitement produces a physical effect that makes the brain willing to do other things (for a while). For this reason, the “extraneous” courses and activities in schools are utterly indispensable. A kid only needs to get excited by one thing a day to desire to live another day, and the more opportunities they are given for that in school, the better off they will be.
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