Latin is not for elites (also, rich kids are often lazy)

For the English and Americans, at least, and possibly elsewhere, Latin is seen as elite because of the association between elite schools (in the UK, “public schools” like Eton) and Latin. This seems to be specifically an anglophone stereotype but even in such countries it seems silly. Latin itself is not elite simply because, according to stereotypes, elites alone learn it. Eliminating Latin from schools or restricting the hours devoted to studying Latin doesn’t eliminate elitism, it just means that even fewer people will have access. This is more elitist than the language itself could be.

Of course, I would argue that people who are less wealthy and privileged are better equipped to learn Latin. If you are used to having everything handed to you and never trying, you are less likely to have the work ethic to actually learn the language. Latin is not “for smart people” (I am not “smart”) or whatever stereotypes tell you, but learning requires a certain amount of hard work - perhaps more so than other languages with fewer forms to memorize - and devotion. I would argue that anyone can learn Latin, if suitably motivated and given access to the right resources. I think the stereotypical aristocratic Latin student is likely to be less motivated than someone for whom Latin is a path to a better life. If you are used to pushing through difficulty, whether intellectual or otherwise, surely Latin poses less of an obstacle. The born-rich people I have know, specifically Americans, tend to be less suited to pushing through the annoyance and discomfort inherent in learning a dead language to the advanced level. They also tend to only speak English, unlike most people in the world, who were generally forced to learn other languages as children and thus, perhaps, have more of a work ethic.

While I come from a place of wealth and privilege, in fact one of the wealthiest parts of the United States, I had been vastly underestimated as a child and assumed to be, essentially, incapable of anything. I was diagnosed as autistic, I suspect incorrectly, so I spent my childhood in “special education” and never learned anything that I didn’t teach myself until I moved to Europe for university in my early 20s. I guess nobody knew the difference between “clever but also very shy” and “just plain stupid.” I spent my teens alone in my bedroom, reading Victorian translations of Greek philosophy and Latin historians, as well as a wide variety of English novels, but I never knew that commentaries existed, nor where to find them, and nobody ever advised me in my reading or seemed aware that I wasn’t yet another disabled kid who would live at home or in an institution forever, so my education was very random and mostly based on what could be found in the local library or on Project Gutenberg. The translations I had were outdated and inadequate so I can’t say I learned much - I still feel like I’m catching up with people much younger than I am. I’m sort of amazed that I got into college at all, let alone grad school.

My family never allowed me to learn to drive, so after I turned 18 and had places to go aside from school I had to learn to navigate an extremely inadequate transit system and walk for miles to get anywhere - there is a reason that even very basic jobs in the US, such as working in a cafe or bookstore, usually require a car. Living in Italy as an adult, I learned to dealt with one of the more annoying public transport systems, not to mention the chaos of figuring out the permit to stay process. I am used to some level of frustration and I think this is healthy. If I had not been so lucky as to have experienced all of this, I suspect I would be, like most of the rich American people I know, too lazy to learn Latin.

I had to fight to be able to go to university, after a lifetime of being told that I couldn’t do anything, that I was too stupid to work at a McDonalds, that I had no value except, perhaps, visually, being a girl and all. I had to fight to have any kind of independence or freedom, to be allowed to study far from home. I am used to fighting and proving that I deserve anything at all, something that perhaps cannot be said of the sort of rich people “forced” to study Latin at prep school. I have to work twice as hard to be half as good as normal students, because I have memory problems, possibly due to a head injury I got from falling on ice as a teenager. Latin is extremely difficult for me, but I did everything I could learn, something most of the more wealthy and privileged Americans I have met would never bother with.

I suspect this has gotten worse in the age of AI. Life is so clean and easy, why think at all? Why memorize the way home, when you can use your GPS and let your natural ability to navigate atrophy? Why learn French or Spanish, when Google translate exists? Why learn anything, ever, when you can “just Google it”? Why study for an exam or work hard on a paper, when AI can write it for you? Why try, ever, if you are rich and can have whatever you want anyway? When you know you will have a internship on Capital Hill because Daddy has connections? You don’t try. You never bother to do anything, because you don’t need to. You certainly don’t learn a thing like Latin or Greek, which won’t help you at all when you start working at an investment firm or whatever it is rich people do.

But if Latin is something you have to fight to be allowed to study, if it is something people like you don’t usually have the chance to learn, if it is a way out of a bleak life, obviously you give it all you have. You give up your lunches and read all through dinner. This is perhaps why many of the greatest students and teachers of Latin that I have met are working class or have lived difficult lives. They had to really want to learn Latin and fight for it. They had to apply for - and win - scholarships, to leave their hometowns to study at the best universities and institutes, far away from anything they knew. These studies (haec studia humanitatis ac litterarum) also provide solace in times of pain or trouble, making them all the more dear to people who know what it is to be alone, to be hungry, to be afraid and more than a little lost.