It's unfortunate that the order of the clauses in SQL is "wrong"SQL is written goal-oriented.
You start with what you want (the goal). Then you specify from where (which can also be read as "what", since each table generally describes a thing) and finally you constrain it to the specific instances you care about.
SELECT the information I want FROM the thing that I care about WHERE condition constrains results to the few I want
Having said that, I would personally still prefer it in reverse like you say. I can see the value of how SQL does it, though, especially for non-programmers who think less about the process of getting the results and more about the results they want (because they haven't been trained to think of the process, like programmers have).
It makes sense for someone who isn't thaaaaat technical to start with "well, I want the name and salary of the employee but only those that are managers": SELECT name, salary FROM employee WHERE position = 'manager'
Admittedly even that isn't perfect and I assume that it wouldn't take much for someone to learn the reverse.