LEGAL EDUCATION.
A MOST important resolution has been adopted by the governing body of the Middle Temple. It has long been matter for general and just censure, that the Inns of Court—in theory the Law Uni- versities of England—do nothing to promote legal education or the science of law. By eating a certain number of dinners in the hail of an Inn of Court, during a certain number of years, a vim man acquires a right to be admitted to practise at the bar. the inchers--the Parliaments of these foundations—exact no tests of fitness, make no provision for his receiving instruction in
\ the prin 'pies or practice of his profession. That he is left to pick up
for him by attendmr,o- the sittings of the Courts of Law, or per- forming e routine drudgery of a conveyancer's or special pleader's office. T i experience thus acquired, though valuable—indispen- sable to th perfect lawyer—is not sufficient to train the class whose function it is to explain and apply the principles of the law, who are understood to stand in the same relation to the other branches of the legal profession that physicians do to the mere operative surgeon or apothecary. The consequence is, that with many high qualities, the bar of England, and the bench, whose occupants are selected from it, are too often found wanting in respect of broad philosophic and liberal views of law. The branch who ought to be the depository of legal science—the source whence a more intellectual character diffuses itself even to the most mechanical branches of the profession, becomes in no slight degree as much the mere creatures of formal routine as any of the others. The resolution adopted by the Parliament of the Middle Temple affords reason to hope that this unsatisfactory state of affairs is about to be altered for the better.
In November last, the Bench of this Indappointed "a Committee to ascertain and report on the best methods for promoting the legal education of their students. In their report the Committee adverted to "the acknowledged deficiency which has long been felt to exist in the education of English lawyers, in consequence of the entire neglect of the study of Jurisprudence and the Civil Law." Under "Jurisprudence" the Committee comprehend " po-
sitive Jurisprudence or the Philosophy of positive Law "; by"Civil Law," they mean those portions of the Roman Law, "which
being of an universal character and applicable to the relations of modern society, have formed the basis of the jurisprudence of many continental nations, and entered so largely into our own." The Committee rightly judge that an intimate acquaintance with these subjects would tend to develop in English lawyers more compre- hensive, more intellectual conceptions of the scope and tendency of law than have hitherto prevailed among them. With a view to supply to their students the means of prosecuting such studies, the Committee recommend the foundation of a lectureship on Jurisprudence and the Civil Law. With a view to stimulate a desire among the students to avail themselves of the lecturer's in- structions, the Committee recommend the revival of the obsolete practice of annual examinations of the students proposed for the bar previously to their being called, and the publication by the Society on the occasion of every call to the bar of the names of those students who have submitted themselves to examinations, with such honourable additions as they shall appear to have de- served. The Committee also recommend the foundation of two exhibitions or prizes, of one hundred guineas each, to be bestowed on the two students who having diligently attended two terminal lectures shall have passed the most meritorious examination. The recommendations of this report have been adopted by the Benchers of the Middle Temple.
Lectures on Jurisprudence and the Civil Law may appear a slender provision for a complete legal education. Nor do the dis- tinguished members of the profession who have contributed to their foundation regard them otherwise than as a beginning. A hope is expressed that what they have begun will be followed out and completed by the proceedings of other Societies. The Lectures are to be open to the students of all the Societies. A friendly challenge is thus given to the other Inns of Court to es- tablish lectures on other departments of legal knowledge, which shall in return be open to the students of the Middle Temple. Suppose the Inner Temple were to found a lectureship on Con- veyancing, Gray's on the Common Law, Lincoln's on Equity, and so forth. A complete " Faculty " of law teachers might in time be established by the cooperation of the Inns of Court. Lawyers trained under such teachers would be found adequate to grapple with the task of systematizing our law, now threatening to break down beneath the weight of its own unwieldy and incoherent bulk—they would become the Gaiuses and Ulpians of England. We believe that this will be done—that the honourable example set by the Middle Temple will be emulously followed. We be- lieve this because there is a Brougham in Lincoln's Inn, and there are many able and accomplished men of the world in the other Inns of Court. Such minds know the temper and tone of contemporary society. They know that in an age when apothe- caries receive an expensive and liberal education—when our very mechanics have their Institutions—it is not safe for the lawyers of England to remain the only uneducated class in the country. The Inns of Court are the means by which the lawyers of Eng- land are made a corporation. The Judges are selected from their barristers, the other branches of the profession are associated with them. In possession of all the great law appointments, exer- cising an influence over every class of law practitioners, the Inns of Court are a powerful estate of the realm — second only, if indeed second, in real, all-penetrating power, to the Church, the corporation of the Clergy. As the world now goes, such power can only be beneficially exercised, can only be securely retained, by those who keep pace with the advance of the world in all kinds of skill and knowledge. There have been law incorpora- tions as powerful, perhaps more powerful, than our Inns of Court. There mss a Parliament of Paris, which stood for ages the sole bulwark between the people and despotism spiritual and civil. The Parliament of Paris failed to keep pace with the advancing spirit of last century, and where is it now ?
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