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I guarantee if you made a poll asking the question of teaching STEM or cutting back STEM to provide Latin and Greek language classes, STEM would win by a mile.
And I will reiterate when using a language for professional purposes only, that portion of the language is perfectly obtainable when studying the profession itself. Engineering schools and Medical schools do not require Latin or Greek languages to enter into their programs. Not one that i have seen in Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Virginia (The states I am familiar with).
When you are paying 50K+ for a degree at Public Universities you no longer have the luxury of studying for the sake of academics. You need a way to earn a living and pay for that degree at a minimum.
Again, I need to reiterate that this is foundational Greek and Latin. Not to become a fluent speaker of the language. Foundational Greek and Latin is a prerequisite of most STEM subjects. Especially science and math (in which engineering and tech are built upon).
Sans a few professional programs (medicine, law, business, etc.), college is academic... not job training. There's great places to get trained for a job... including vocational schools.
The "liberal arts" are named such because to study them one had to be free. As in not a slave. And probably a slave owner, thus not having to work for a living.
I've always considered this a dubious provenance. And frankly I think we should stop venerating the liberal arts. Absolutely some miniscule fraction of the population should master these skills each generation to transmit the knowledge. But does anyone beyond that need to know beyond the skin deep level of curiosity and awareness such as you are exposed during a 100 or 200 level class in undergraduate?
There's academic education (K-12 & College) and education for job preparation (professional schools, vocational schools, etc.).
College was always for a small fraction of the population. Not everyone needs a college education. Most people don't even need 100 or 200 level knowledge of these topics. Foundational Greek and Latin are part of a high school education and not 100 or 200. In high school, you typically only learn the language from a technical aspect but not to actually speak it. The purpose is so you can further study subjects like math, science, and others that are largely based on these languages.
And in today's world if you want to learn Latin all you need is internet access to Youtube, it does not require paying 2K for a class at a Public University or even more at a Ivy league school.
Some of this thinking is antiquated. Universities are no longer the Gate Keeper to a liberal arts education, much of it can be obtained individually if so desired quite easily with good quality. I think Harvard has put some of these classes online for free because they have moved on to more modern education models.
Many classes can be taught online while many cannot. Even then, you only get the classroom aspect of a college education from these online programs (or youtube). They don't cover the majority of what you get out of attending college (from an education perspective).
So students can now major in Greek or Latin, but don't have to actually take Greek or Latin?
Another step to just awarding people a degree just for showing up.
You do realize that this discussion is about Princeton, right? Princeton doesn't have majors in Greek or Latin. It would have taken you 5 seconds to actually look that up.
Maybe your school awarded degrees for just showing up but that's not the case at Princeton.
There's academic education (K-12 & College) and education for job preparation (professional schools, vocational schools, etc.).
College was always for a small fraction of the population. Not everyone needs a college education. Most people don't even need 100 or 200 level knowledge of these topics. Foundational Greek and Latin are part of a high school education and not 100 or 200. In high school, you typically only learn the language from a technical aspect but not to actually speak it. The purpose is so you can further study subjects like math, science, and others that are largely based on these languages.
My guess is that some people here did not go to high school in the US so they aren't familiar with our education system.
There's academic education (K-12 & College) and education for job preparation (professional schools, vocational schools, etc.).
College was always for a small fraction of the population. Not everyone needs a college education. Most people don't even need 100 or 200 level knowledge of these topics. Foundational Greek and Latin are part of a high school education and not 100 or 200. In high school, you typically only learn the language from a technical aspect but not to actually speak it. The purpose is so you can further study subjects like math, science, and others that are largely based on these languages.
I think you guys are really stretching the usefulness of this requirement. A requirement that is NOT a requirement at 90% of the schools in the USA. Nor is it a requirement to enter any Medical or engineering school. MIT does not require it for its science or engineering programs.
What i am getting at is if the US can turn out 1000's of engineers, doctors, and Scientist whom have never taken a formal class in Latin or greek, then I would feel safe in saying it is not necessary as a requirement for everyone to take. Specific areas such as Linguistics courses, European Literature, or International business (Greek)ncan focus on this but would likely more indept classes anyway.
Nobody's asked so I will; When will Greek and Latin be replaced with e-bonics ?
To be fair American English sounds like Ebonics if you speak actual English.
If you watch Paula Dean or listen to Country music then you are not hearing "English" that is for sure.
I think you guys are really stretching the usefulness of this requirement. A requirement that is NOT a requirement at 90% of the schools in the USA. Nor is it a requirement to enter any Medical or engineering school. MIT does not require it for its science or engineering programs.
What i am getting at is if the US can turn out 1000's of engineers, doctors, and Scientist whom have never taken a formal class in Latin or greek, then I would feel safe in saying it is not necessary as a requirement for everyone to take. Specific areas such as Linguistics courses, European Literature, or International business (Greek)ncan focus on this but would likely more indept classes anyway.
I think people are focusing on the classes a bit much too. For example, Latin is taught at an early age and throughout grade school into high school to prepare for and as part of specific subjects. Greek is primarily only taught for the purpose of math and isn't focused on nearly as much. A typical high school graduate (in the US) has a much better understanding of Latin than Greek even though they would not be able to actually speak either effectively.
It's not so much that you take a formal class, but it's something you spend a lot of time learning in school. It's not a specific requirement, but is assumed if you graduate high school.
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