The Following Content Has Been Provided by:Bob Unruh

Online encyclopedic resources confirm that during the first part of the 20th century, more than half of America’s public secondary-school students studied Latin.

Until the late 1920s, Latin enrollments in U.S. secondary schools were greater that enrollments for all other foreign languages combined.

Hundreds of thousands of students, at the time, took the classes, which started falling out of favor in the 1950s and 1960s.

Part of that was the result of Congress’ National Defense Education Act at that time that omitted support for all Latin, except at the graduate level.

Now, the reports reveal, there are “an inadequate number of qualified teachers available.”

But the language has stumped even education officials in one state.

A report at Not the Bee explains North Carolina officials recently rejected an application to homeschool from Kristin Barclay, who had moved from South Carolina and wanted to continue educating her children.

Because her college graduation certificate, submitted to the state to meet its requirements, was written in Latin.

It was from Sweet Briar College, the report said, “A historical women’s school in Virginia.”

The Home School Legal Defense Association soon stepped in, and explained, Not the Bee said, “She received an email from DNPE containing a concerning message: ‘One or more problems exist in your notice of intent.’ Specifically, ‘The diploma evidence was not written in English.’ The email added that until this problem was corrected, ‘your homeschool is not legally registered with the state of North Carolina.’”

In fact, the report explained, “A lot of universities, including most of the Ivy Leagues, issue diplomas in Latin or at least partially in Latin.”

When Barclay obtained “an English translation” for her diploma from Sweet Briar and submitted it, state officials then claimed the translation “didn’t have her name on it.”

“HSLDA Senior Counsel Darren Jones wrote to the DNPE on Kristin’s behalf, pointing out that their request for additional documentation went beyond what state law requires,” the report said.

The state backed down, the report confirmed.

The HSLDA itself explained, “Our legal team eventually determined that the state’s protests could be characterized by the words of the Roman educator Quintilian: damnant quod non intellegunt. Or, in English, ‘They condemn what they do not understand.’”