To the editor:

So many people, including myself, have written letters recently trying to keep Latin at Free State and Lawrence High. I want to follow up with a practical suggestion.

I understand that the school board sees the small number of students that take Latin. I would see the same thing if I were in their position. However, I would strongly recommend this: Incorporate Latin teaching into standard English classes with the Latin teacher teaching them. As so many of us have said, Latin is so important in understanding English grammar and becoming better in writing and reading in English. One way to do this would be to have the Latin teacher come to English classes on a regular basis to teach them Latin grammar and English grammar. I would recommend that starts sometime in middle school but it definitely needs to be done in high school. The English and Latin teachers would need to decide on a schedule as to how to do this. Could the Latin teacher come in every day for one week in each month to teach the Latin/English grammar or maybe one or two days each week? The Latin teacher would teach the entire class on those days. As we have all said, Latin is so important to English proficiency.

Steve Ferrier,

Lawrence