I love the book on so many levels. My copy is swollen and waterlogged, and held together with packing tape. I love it for all the Latin I relearned, but I love it even more for everything it indirectly teaches about teaching.

I’ve always treasured polished and well edited textbooks, but this thing makes the best textbooks feel like the work of amateurs. I always think of Neal Stephenson’s Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer when I’m reading it. It’s like parts of your brain being unzippered to discover understanding your didn’t know you already had.

I think of Lingua Latina in a surprising number of conversations… it reminds me to be considerate of how much new information can be absorbed, but also to fully trust my audience with that new information. I don’t need to belabor the presentation of ideas. I simply need to share my ideas in the context they matter, as if my audience already understood completely.