Following the recent reorganization Portuguese school system and the subject groups it offers to students, the teaching of classical languages has been reduced to a residual status in the secondary schools, and has been eliminated in all but a very few of them. It also runs the risk of soon disappearing altogether from the university curriculum.

Financial necessities have limited the offering not only of classical languages, but of foreign languages and literature, which are also in danger at all levels of education. This is in spite of the fact that over the years Portugal has made a major investment of moneys and effort to create an elite cadre of internationally recognized professors and specialists in areas which are an index of development and make up part of the cultural tradition of countries that we would like to equal.

Ignoring the fact that “mathematics and sciences do not form citizens”, as Manuel Damásio reminds us (Expresso, 10/03/2006), politicians occupying positions of responsibility risk depriving Portugal’s younger generations of the possibility of learning about those roots which link our national identity with the wider European identity, and with the values that constitute the origin of the cultural, ethical and civic heritage of the West.