A remarkably silly article from an American newspaper complained that the publishers of Wheelock's Latin Course have updated it. Apparently this course, which seems to be the preferred book in American schools, has cast off the forbidding, crowded, pictureless look of the Third Edition which I possess, and now looks a bit more like a modern textbook. I saw the article on this site, but the news has been taken up by other papers, and has even reached The Guardian.

Today’s Wheelock looks totally different from the original, densely packed tome Professor Frederic Wheelock sketched out a half-century ago. There are photographs, maps and eye-pleasing layouts. Exercises reflect the latest pedagogical theory. Readings feature fewer battlefield dispatches and more emphasis on women and everyday life. There is even a dirty poem by Catullus.

Wheelock’s also has a Web site, e-mail discussion groups and, soon, online audio recordings.

“The times, they are a-changing,” says Richard LaFleur, the University of Georgia classicist who took over the editorship of the series in the mid-1990s, following Wheelock’s 1987 death. “We want to keep up with the changes.”

But why the complaint? It's the cost. Apparently there have been Senate hearings about the soaring cost of school textbooks. The writer says that some subjects change, so there's a reason for new editions of textbooks:

Latin, however, hasn’t changed for 2,000 years. And where publishers see essential updates, critics of high textbook prices often wonder if new editions aren’t just a ploy to raise prices.

The Guardian's article is a great deal more balanced and sympathetic.

According to the silly article, the average price per new textbook was more than $100. It's ironic that the writer should choose to complain particularly about Wheelock, when a glance at the Amazon site shows the price of Wheelock as follows:

list price: $20.95
our price: $14.67