Many Latin students were already sweating over the first sentence of Homer’s “Odyssey”, the epic about the adventures of Odysseus: “Name me, Muse, the man who experienced many things and went far astray after the destruction of Holy Troy.” In the invocation to the muses, the poet asks the tutelary goddesses of the arts for inspiration and help. According to some music teachers in Bavaria, the muses themselves need help and the problem is supposed to be Latin.
The Muses, a common nickname for girls and boys taking the arts track at high schools, must take Latin and English. There is no choice of French or Spanish. The Neubiberg music teacher Klaus Kaiser sees this as a problem that threatens the future of the branch. The Corona years would have done damage anyway, he says. In the distance lessons there was hardly any room for music, the greatest fun with the instrument, making music together, was cancelled. The emission of aerosols and thus the risk of infection in orchestras and choirs was too great.
At the annual general meeting of the philologists’ association, Kaiser recently introduced the motion to abolish the Latin requirement. The discussion was heated, report participants. Some say that only those who know Latin and know mythology understand Western art and music. Kaiser and company saw it differently. The vote was narrow for Kaiser. Although it is initially only about the mood of a teachers’ association, but of those teachers who teach in the arts branch. And the board of philologists should now try to end the compulsory use of Latin on a political level. Reason enough to ask around at the music high schools in Bavaria.
55 of the 433 grammar schools offer an arts branch, nine of which are purely arts grammar schools with no other type of training. Students in the music branch learn an instrument in addition to English and Latin and have more music lessons than their classmates. There are currently around 12,380 muses. In 2014 there were 2470 more children. However, the number of high school students in the Free State has declined overall since then, according to the responsible department in the Ministry of Education. In plain language: Don’t overrate, don’t be so wild.
“As a Latin teacher, my heart bleeds”
Anyone who speaks to school principals hears something similar: Muses in danger? Not with us! Some speak of fluctuations, but demand seems to be stable. As with the Philologists’ Day, opinions differ on the subject of Latin being compulsory: traditionalists versus those who no longer find Latin up-to-date and advocate other languages.
“As a Latin teacher, my heart bleeds, but logically I can’t understand why a student who is good at an instrument also has to learn Latin,” says Peter Kosak, head of the Schulwerk of the Augsburg Diocese. Three of its ten Catholic high schools offer a branch in the arts. Two are doing very well, and one school is “minimally declining”. But that’s not so much due to Latin as to the “very strong” musical profile of the state high school in town. Some directors cite competition in the region as a reason for fluctuating enrollment numbers, not necessarily Latin. Nonetheless, his school principals are clearly in favor of lifting the Latin requirement, says Kosak, because it regularly puts parents and children off.
“It’s a growing story. I don’t believe that children are better at music when they learn Latin,” says Markus Knebel, head of the ETA Hoffmann high school in Bamberg. His school is one of the nine where only muses learn. There are currently 900, and the trend is rising. Knebel wants to keep Latin “because we’re doing well with it”.
More than the old language, it is problematic that parents and students do not want to commit themselves or only do so too late, almost all headmasters say. However, if girls or boys opt for the arts branch, it is clear in the fifth grade that they will learn Latin and English.
Stefan Dieter, headmaster at the Carl-von-Linde-Gymnasium in Kempten, also sees a “general problem that the foreign language Latin has” rather than a muse. At his school, children can start Latin in the fifth grade, but the demand has changed a lot in the past ten years. While two and a half out of three classes started with Latin in 2012, the relationship has now turned to English. “Society is very utilitarian, so modern foreign languages have an advantage,” says Dieter. Whether that corresponds to the “educational mandate of the high school” is another question.
The music branch is more than musical training, Latin and German characterize the profile, according to the Ministry of Education. Minister Michael Piazolo (FW) even calls Latin “the linguistic foundation of Europe”. Pupils learned humanities and cultural studies content that promoted the understanding of European art, music and literature. French instead of Latin is “repeatedly thrown up”. There are obviously no plans for change.