Dec 18– From Some Thoughts Concerning Education by John Locke (1693)
Summary: How to teach kids Latin (which they don't really need to know).
Commentary: Locke spends about half a page explaining why Latin is unnecessary (most of the people who learn it will never learn it well, never use it, and forget it), but then goes on for a couple pages about how to best teach it (immersion). Weird. The highlight of the whole thing is his discussion on how to avoid forgetting English:
Only care is to be taken whilst he is learning these foreign languages, by speaking and reading nothing else with his tutor, that he do not forget to read English, which may be preserved by his mother or somebody else hearing him read some chosen parts of the scripture or other English book every day.
Someone forgetting their first language because their tutor only speaks a second one is definitely an origin story.
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