Speaking as an Italian the education Lenu is receiving is common even by today’s standards. Our high schools are divided by which educational path you want to pursue so in Lenu’s case she wanted to become a writer so she went to a “Liceo Classico” classical high school. Also Latin is the foundation of the Italian language therefore it is still very relevant to learn especially if you want to be a writer or study languages it’s not elitist at all In fact it’s important to our culture! Also a lot of buildings and statues and art still have Latin & Greek written on them so it’s still part of our society. We may not speak Latin & Greek but we can read and write the basics.