38 Latin Stories: "A Crisis in Roman Education"

Ego discipulos in scholis stultissimos fieri puto, quod nihil, ex his quae in usu habemus, aut audiunt aut vident, sed homines plenos timoris petentes a piratis ne se in catenas iniciant, sed tyrannos edicta scribentes quibus imperent filiis ut capita patrum suorum praedicant, sed reges orcaculis monitos ut virgines tres immolent ne pestilentia gravior fiat.

I think that students are becoming very stupid in schools, because (they) hear and see nothing from these (things) which we have in use, but rather (they hear about) men full of fear seeking from pirates that they not throw them into chains, and also tyrants writing edicts by which they might order sons that they cut off the heads of their own fathers, and also kings having been advised by oracles that they burn three virgins so that a pestilence does not become more grave.

Qui inter haec aluntur non magis sapere possunt quam bene olere qui in culina vivunt!

Those who among these (people) are nourished (by school), are able to understand not more than those who live in a kitchen (are able) to smell well!

Levibus enim atque turpibus declamationibus magistri effecerunt ut corpus orationis enervaretur et caderet.

Teachers, with trivial and disgraceful declamations, have caused that the body of oration be weakened and fall.

Certe neque Plato neque Demosthenes ad hoc genus exercitationis accessit!"

Certainly neither Plato nor Demosthenes is added to this type of training!

Non est passus Agamemnon me diutius orare: "Ego magistros fateor in his exercitationibus peccare, sed debemus eis ignoscere.

Agamemnon did not suffer me to plead my case all day long: "I admit that the teachers made a mistake in these exercises, but we ought to forgive them.

Nam nisi dixerint ea quae adulescentibus placent, ut ait Cicero, 'soli in scholis relinquentur.'

For unless they will have said things which are pleasing to young men, as Cicero said, "they will be left alone in the schools."

Parentes culpa digni sunt, qui nolunt liberos suos severa lege discere.

Parents are deserving in blame, who do not want their own children to learn in a strict condition.

Nunc, ut pueri, in scholis ludunt; ut iuvenes ridentur in foro."

Now, as boys, (they) play in the schools, and as young men (they) are being ridiculed in the forum.