ROBERT McNeil's article, "Separating the sheep from the dux" (The Herald, June 14), brought back to Andrew McGeever memories of his school days in Fife, where Latin was part of the curriculum.

This is his belated homage to his old Latin teacher.

DUCO, DUCIS, DUCIT

(to Derek Dawson)

In my school, every classics pupil scrawled

on their vocabulary jotter, Latin is

a dead language; as dead as dead can be,

Latin killed the Romans, and now

It's killing me. We never questioned

those sentiments; thought only of ruffling

Mr Dawson, our Latin master.

Salvete discipuli! he'd announce

with a swish of his gown, the tawse

just visible on his shoulder. Salve

magister! we chanted in reply.

Declensions and conjugations were boot-camps

of discipline: ye gods, he drummed it in.

Yet he unveiled the ancient world to sons

and daughters of miners, lit a lamp,

armed us with knowledge of the language we speak:

lines to write on the jotter of our lives.