@George,
I wish I had a dollar for every time I had to chant the conjugation of the verb 'to be' . My first week in Latin I genuinely didnt know we had homework . Six cuts of the best from the strap, then one cut for each mistake if Brother thought we should know it . I didnt like being punished for a genuine mistake, so I never did Latin homework again or answered a question correctly . We were only supposed to get six a day maximum, but I would walk out of Latin with between 12 -16 cuts every lesson . He gave up before I did .
Then just to show I could do it, I studied hard and got an A .
In the Army I did every survival course available in the Defence Forces, except for one . But every time things got hairy and ugly, I thought of Latin and how it taught me I was tough enough to survive anything . Kids dont 'learn' the way we used to...