Wise Benjamin Franklin urged his contemporaries to master the modern languages before tackling Latin or Greek. Now, after nearly two centuries, prominent educators are taking up the same cry in their attack upon the continuance of compulsory Latin in our schools.

In the last decade there has been a steadily deepening conviction that dead languages are out of place in a living civilization. Public opinion has demanded that education should be more practical, that it should train men for increased usefulness in the nation. Modern languages, literature, science, history and economics -- we cannot even read the morning paper without utilizing them. Yet Latin rather lacks these vital, essential qualities, for seldom does a situation arise in modern life which requires its services. We live, not in the faraway days of Rome, but in the tumultuous and perplexing whirl of the twentieth century. We must prepare our young men to meet these complex conditions.

Such a stand generally evokes the charge of a rank utilitarianism which requires us to cut ourselves off from the past and confine our efforts to the narrow limits of material advantage. But here the critics are unfair. One of the cardinal requisites of the useful man is an intimate knowledge of the past. He must have in mind an historical background in order to distinguish real progress from false and estimate the value of modern movements. Without this alert consciousness of the historical evolution of morals and customs, society would resemble the man who has lost his memory.

We must maintain our intimacy with the past. We must develop scholars who will bring us into closer understanding of the glories and blunders of other civilizations, who will convince our youths that the past is stored with object lessons of great value now. However, a few years of required Latin in school will not help us on the road. For all have future scholars they will only serve to waste the energy which might have been thrown into the direct study of Rome herself, of the splendor of her institutions, and the greatness of her sons. By all means let us continue to teach Latin in American schools, but let us not force it on those who might utilize their time to a greater advantage in other ways.