110W BARRISTERS ARE MADE.
Jr is never too late to learn ; but we know no instance of a de- ferred question so remarkable as that raised by Mr. Napier on Wednesday in moving for a Royal Commission virtually to in- quire whether it is not desirable that lawyers should have a legal education. There are about four thousand barristers in the United Kingdom, whose principal qualification is to have "eaten their terms" at the Inns of Court. Rather recently, it has been thought desirable to provide them with the means of instruetion in the shape of lectures ; but there was this defect in the plan, that one curriculum implied, labour and the other curriculum im- plied gratification. A man might attain his position by eating or by working, and naturally he would choose the easier road. Nay, results, disastrous to the more ambitious choice have lately been mentioned, man who studies and falls short may be "plucked"; whereas the man who sticks to eating avoids that dishonourable stoppage to his progress. Yet it is desirable to ac- quire some knowledge of the law; and Mr. R. Phillimore men- tioned a pertinent instance in Lord Stowell, who certainly would not have possessed that surprising knowledge of jurisprudence if he had not studied. No man can eat his way into the knowledge of anything but edibles, or perhaps of pathology ; but the wonder- ful thing is, that it should have been left to this day for Parlia- ment and barristers to arrive at thoroughly positive convictions on the subject,—convictions so positive as to bring them up short at the question whether barristers can be bred by eating. At last Parliament is awaking to the idea that barristers are not like queen-bees.
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