With reference to the letter by Rodianne Caruana, academic officer of the Law Students’ Association (October 16), the Malta Classics Association would to like to suggest that Latin be included in the list of six subjects in which a student must acquire certification so that he may be eligible to read law at the University.

That it did not occur to the Law Students’ Association that Latin should be on this list reveals a lacuna in the education of this contemporary generation of law students. Given the overwhelming weight of legal literature in Latin and the Roman root of so many legal and related concepts, Latin should be recommended at some level, even a basic one, to a law student or to a student intending to study law. That our law students are graduating without even a basic knowledge of Latin is much akin to a student of English graduating without knowledge of English literature older than that of the 1950s.

There are issues of human resources but the Malta Classics Association is collaborating with the University of Malta to increase the number of students studying Latin and Greek at degree level. If the Law Students’ Association were to include Latin in this list of subjects, there may come a time when the teaching of Latin and Greek at pre-tertiary level in Malta would be restored as a respectable and practical option. Naturally, all University courses benefiting from knowledge of Latin will find that the existence of such an option does much to prepare their undergraduates for the rigour of academic study.