The dead language that could be coming to life again in schools

She was the kind of teacher who had a genuine love of her subject and who wanted her pupils to feel the same way. She was kind, inspiring and unafraid to occasionally meander off-syllabus.

Sadly, her talents were not widely known, because Dr Beaumont taught Latin.

I'm not entirely sure how I ended up opting to take the subject at GCSE. Come to think of it, I'm not sure entirely sure how Dr Beaumont ended up at

a high school on the edge of Leeds city centre where her enyclopaedic knowledge and enthusiasm was wasted on an ever-diminishing number of pupils.

But she did, and the handful of us who had the pleasure of spending a couple of hours each week in her classroom were glad it had worked out that way.

Sometimes we would decline verbs that we knew we would instantly forget. More often though, Dr Beaumont would tell us to put away our grammar books and listen instead to the poetry of Ovid and Catullus

and, long before it became fashionable, she made us aware what the Romans had done for all of us.

Shortly after I left, Latin disappeared from the curriculum and Dr Beaumont moved to a sixth form college. The school could no longer justify running a course which had such a small uptake.

It was a similar story elsewhere and for a while it seemed that the language, which had first died a death back in the fifth century, was finally about to become extinct.

However, not everyone is prepared to let Latin quietly shuffle off the timetable. From September next year, all primary schools will be required to teach pupils a modern foreign language from the age of seven.

Most are poised with flash cards about ordering a cheese sandwich and asking for directions to the post office in French and Spanish, but a think- tank, together with a group of writers and broadcasters, is

now calling for Latin to be included alongside more modern options.

Oxford scholars, Professor Christopher Pelling and Dr Llewelyn Morgan, are behind the campaign, backed by the likes of Ian Hislop, Sir Tom Stoppard and Inspector Morse creator Colin Dexter, and they argue Latin would help youngsters with written and spoken English, maths and their learning of other languages.

"We want our children to be confident in their ability to speak to British and non-British people and to feel comfortable in a diverse and evolving world, and at the heart of the aspiration is linguistic sophistication," says the report, published by Politeia.

"We want them to be alive to the significance of our country's past and motivated to study the literature which preserves and celebrates that past. We also want our kids to be taught by a highly qualified and passionate cadre of educators. We want them to fly high. To all of that Latin is the key."

The professors are fighting against a tide. While last year David Holland, principal of Hill House School, in Doncaster, brought back Latin lessons amid fears most subjects taught in the modern-day classroom were undemanding, its supporters remain in the minority.

In 2008 it emerged a number of local authorities had banned staff from using Latin words for fear it left the public confused.

Several had ruled that phrases like "vice versa", "pro rata" and in some cases even "via" should not be used in speech or writing.

The decision prompted one Cambridge University academic to remark it was the linguistic equivalent of ethnic cleansing and, in answer to the latest campaign, the Department for Education has been deliberately vague.

"There is no veto on primary schools teaching Latin, it is for schools to decide whether it should be included in their curriculum," says a spokesman.

"Latin is an important subject and is valuable for supporting pupils' learning of modern languages. It can provide a very useful basis for study across a range of disciplines.

"It is however, not classified in the national curriculum as a modern language, as pupils are not able to interact with native Latin speakers or study/visit parts of the world where Latin is spoken as a native language."

Latin may be dead linguistically, but that's not the point. Learning it unlocks a whole dusty cabinet of treasures written when Britain's civilisation dawned. And besides, if you have a teacher like Dr Beaumont, it's possible to bring anything alive.