I like the grammar, the oratory, the certamen. Latin is like a treasure hunter's dream. You find something and you want to go after more. Latin used to be artificially at the top of the list of languages. It's been brought in line with how, for example, French and Spanish are taught.
Students learn much more about the culture and lifestyles.
And last summer, with the arrival of the national JCL convention at 1,704 students and teachers, the organization's largest in thirty years UMass became Rome and the Fine Arts Center the Coliseum. Whereupon all Hellenic and Roman broke out. Everything but the lions. Then JCL president Melissa Travis called the assembly to order, and everyone quieted for the opening remarks, including UMass President William Bulger's profession of admiration for the Greek Demosthenes and his extemporaneous quotation, in Latin, of the Roman satirist Juvenal. Carl loved the Greeks.