“Why Study Latin?”

It’s been a good week for provocative, pro-history, pieces in Britain’s Guardian newspaper (see below). This blog post by Charlotte Higgins argues that children should learn Latin in school. She gives several valid reasons, but omits the reason why I studied Latin: for a career as a medieval historian. That might be a little more specialist than Higgins was thinking… As someone who has always found language difficult, I do agree that children should be taught more than one from an early age, but I’m not entirely convinced it should be Latin.