Verum, Bonum, Pulchrum: Why we study Latin at Teleos

[Text for the introductory lecture to Latin I for 7th and 8th graders at Teleos Prep]

Verum, Bonum, Pulchrum
Why we study Latin at Teleos

Who knows what the word practice means?

Good. We're all familiar with it as a verb, right? Practice basketball, practice piano, practice soccer, etc. Now does anybody know what practice means when we use it as a noun: a practice; thus-and-such is a practice.

Bene. I have here a definition of practice from a philosopher, whom I very much respect. Now he says that a practice is a coherent and complex form of cooperative human activity. Internal to that activity are some goods. That activity also has some standards of excellence. And when we try to achieve those standards of excellence we realize, or make real, those internal goods. The result of this whole endeavor is that we grow in an ordered way--we grow as human beings both in our ability to achieve excellence and in our conception of the goods and the ends involved in the practice.

Right--so we've got goods and ends. Goods... and Ends...(And when I say ends, I mean purposes and goals--ultimate destinations)

A practice has internal goods and those goods can be directed to internal or external ends.
An internal end would be a liberal end. Since the practice has an end in its self, an internal end, it is thus free (and so liberal) from any exterior purpose. An external end, on the contrary, would be a pragmatic end, for practical purposes.

Now, learning is a practice. Learning math, learning history, learning grammar, logic, rhetoric, etc. Learning is a practice. And no less, learning Latin is a practice.

And so, the practice of learning Latin has internal ends and external ends. So, the way I see it there are two answers to the question: Why do we study Latin at Teleos? The pragmatic answer and the liberal answer.

First, the pragmatic answer: the internal goods of the practice of learning Latin as applied to external ends. We study Latin at Teleos because it broadens our vocabulary, our English vocabulary. Between 60-80% of English vocabulary is derived either directly or indirectly from Latin roots. Thus learning Latin will better acquaint with English vocabulary and in particular the advanced sort of vocabulary you will find on standardized tests and so on.

We also study Latin at Teleos because it sharpens our grammatical analysis; You will learn parts of speech, the behavior of subordinate clauses, the proper use and function of any grammatical element. You will gain facility with the form--the nuts and bolts of language.

And these will culminate in the heightening of reading comprehension. You will learn to read syntactically--to think syntactically. You won't simply rely on familiarity, on instinct, on intuition--though all those things are incredibly important. Rather, you will understand the rules that guide our language and how to apply those rules and think critically about them. And so you will learn how to read better--again very useful on standardized tests.

That then is the pragmatic answer. Now on to the liberal answer.

Verum, bonum, pulcrum, Latin for the True, the Good, the Beautiful. And my liberal answer shows how learning Latin serves each of these since these are inherent in all our intellectual activities here.

Verum: Grammar is the structure of reality. Another philosopher, this one is one of my absolute favorites, Ludwig Wittgentstein said famously and I think aptly: "The limits of my language are the limits of my world." Everything you do, think, feel, say, every experience you have of the world requires some grammar to hold it up, to support it, to give it any meaning or comprehensibility whatsoever. Grammar is the structure of reality, or at the very least, which is in fact quite a lot, grammar is the structure of your experience of reality. And so in elucidating grammar, in making clear for yourself how grammar works, you make for yourself a clearer World, a clearer experience of the World. You thus enable yourself to see the World more truly. And that is how learning Latin serves the True.

Bonum: As human beings, you are properly learners--inasmuch as you are rational, social. and imitative animals (that comes from Aristotle). In learning Latin you learn how to become better learners and so better humans. The best "good life" that you can live right now is a life of learning. You are of the age that your proper place on the receiving of education and you are not yet called upon to be doers, you are appropriately learners. And learning Latin makes you better learners. It teaches you how to memorize and retain, how to analyze, how to synthesize, how to apply and evaluate. And so learning Latin makes you a better learner and so lets you lead better the best life you can lead as proper to you. And that is how learning Latin serves the Good.

Pulchrum: This is probably the most obvious of participations. Latin was once a living language--a language in which great works of epic and lyric poetry, politics, philosophy, and science were composed, spoken, and written. These works were written about the passing of nature, the love between husband and wife, mother and child, the duty to the city, the honor of the gods, the condition of Man. They were written all those centuries ago, in what is now a dead language, and they are beautiful. They are beating-heart, soul-brightening beautiful. And the only way to experience that beauty in all its purity and magnitude is to learn the language. Until you can hold these works in your bare hands, without the often brutish gloves of a translation, some part of its beauty will always be crudely hidden. Latin is the vehicle for all that beauty; it is the communicant for those works from classical Antiquity. And that is how learning Latin serves the Beautiful.

So those are the two answers to the question: "Why do we study Latin at Teleos?"