Op-Ed Contributor (New York Times)
A Vote for Latin
By HARRY MOUNT
Published: December 3, 2007
None of today’s leading presidential
candidates studied Latin at a high level. How things have changed since
the founding fathers.
AT first glance, it doesn’t seem tragic that our leaders don’t study Latin anymore. But it is no coincidence that the professionalization of politics — which encourages budding politicians to think of education as mere career preparation — has occurred during an age of weak rhetoric, shifting moral values, clumsy grammar and a terror of historical references and eternal values that the Romans could teach us a thing or two about. As they themselves might have said, “Roma urbs aeterna; Latina lingua aeterna.” Read on
