We had quite a discussion on that about ten years ago. There was a motion in the faculty of arts to get rid of that requirement. It was quite a rigorous debate, and the motion lost overwhelmingly. It wasn't the language department that ended up supporting it, but in fact the other departments.
But as you can see, I've been wearing my earpiece most of today. I'm probably the least able to communicate in French, but that's because I studied Chinese and Japanese when I was at university. I did Asian history. So I think I have a small excuse for being a little deficient in my French abilities.
It was in fact people like me, people in political science, and people in other disciplines, who argued for this, and the classicists all joined in, because the reality is that it's not just a question of the ability in the language you can get from the one year or training, but how it trains your mind. It really focuses you and makes you learn in a different way. I think that the most rigorous course you can take in university is probably learning a second language. The other thing is that it opens you up to a different culture and a different way of thinking. And several of us have mentioned the internationalization from this, or just learning about other people. I think that's one of the other great benefits from language acquisition.