Unless I'm mistaken, the suggestion about using Latin to teach grammar was based precisely on the fact that Latin is an inflected language -- seeing the inflections might help students see the constructions. Having learned most of my grammar from the study of Latin, I like the suggestion. (I am, of course, asssuming a course taught in the old-fashioned way -- with lots of grammar and vocabulary drill. That is also the way I learned Russian, and, after a while, I got pretty good at it.) The idea that all instruction needs to be utilitarian reduces students to the level of ants. What's wrong with writing a letter to the Pope? Or to Virgil, for that matter. I agree with much of what Johanna said, but I'm disappointed by the "It's hard to believe I'm seeing a suggestion like this at the end of the 20th century." Do we really need to stomp on somebody else's idea in order to advance our own? Ed V.