PROVINCIAL LAW SCHOOLS.
[To 1.1114 ED11.011 Or 71111 SVICCTAT011.1
Srn,—I shall be glad if you will allow me to call attention in your columns to one aspect of the question of legal education which is being now raised by Sir Roundel' Palmer's proposed Bill, which has hardly received much consideration as yet, but which I venture to think is of sonic practical importance. The two desiderata, the want of which is now making itself felt, and which both Sir Roan- dell Palmer and his opponents desire to provide, are, an agency for teaching law in a thorough and scientific manner to students who desire to qualify for its practice ; and another agency for testing by examination whether on the one hand the teaching so provided is efficient, and, on the other, whether the students who have availed themselves of it have derived all the benefit from it which they ought to have done. Now I do not propose to enter into the discussion of the debatable points, whether both of these functions should be performed by one or by separate bodies, or whether it is neces- sary at all to create any new body for either purpose ; there is much to be said on either side which is sure to be said by those who are fully competent to do so. What I wish to point out is, that no scheme will meet all the necessities of legal education which does not do something to remedy the utter, waste of time, so far as anything like general education is concerned, which is involved in the arrangement for articling pupils to solicitors, as it is at present carried out. Admitting that an ordinary solicitor's clerk acquires, during the four or five years for which he occupies a stool in the office, a good deal of practical knowledge which is more or less valuable, not to say essential, to him, I think that it can hardly be denied that in the majority of cases this period is almost an entire blank in the apprentice's life, so far as any attempt is concerned, either to complete the edifice of general education whose foundations have been laid at school, or to acquire any scientific knowledge of the law itself, or of other studies which are closely related to it.
Though 1 am no advocate of the apprenticeship system gener- ally, which, as it still obtains in some few professions, is only a relic of a state of things fast dying out, as unfitted for the con- ditions of the present time, I think that more may be said in its favour in tho case of law than in that of most other professions.
But if it is to be retained at all as an essential element of a legal education, it can only bo so on the condition that the apprentice shall he required during his probation to devote his time to acquir- ing a knowledge of something more than the mere routine of legal practice, as it is met with in most solicitors' offices, and that he shall not be required to pass so much of it in the still more ques- tionable occupation of copying out legal forms which, for all the uocessity that there is for so doing, might in many cases be just as well printed by the gross.
And this brings me to the special object of my letter, which is to suggest that whatever be the form in which the proposed legal
reform may come, a leading object in it should be to encourage the formation in such provincial towns as may possess the resources for so doing of what I may call schools of primary instruction for legal students ; of schools, that is, in which students who are de-
stined for the law, and especially those who have already com- menced their apprenticeship iu an attorney's office, may have an opportunity of carrying on their general education, which can scarcely be considered to be complete at the age at which most of them leave school, and of preparing themselves for the enlarged course of legal instruction which I presume that the proposed University, if it be established, will provide ; or, at any rate, for passing the examination which is to give them admission eventually into the profession. There are few provincial towns of any size in which such a school might not be established, either on an independent basis or in connection with existing educational institutions, and in which the acquisition of a somewhat riper
acquaintance with the classical languages than most lawyers' clerks possess might not be accompanied by a study of such subjects as
logic, moral philosophy, mercantile and general law, laws of evidence, &c., for the teaching of which it does not require any very elaborate organization to provide. Some dozen or two such schools scattered over the country would act as centres of legal education, in correlation with the great centre in London, to which they would serve as feedeis. At present, the establishment of such schools is out of the question, for the simple reason that there is no inducement to articled clerks to attend them, even if their masters were in all cases ready to give thorn facilities for so doing. What is wanted is a provision either to compel solicitors' apprentices to attend such schools where they have an opportunity of so doing, or at any rate to encourage them to do so by the remission of a portion of their period of apprenticeship, as is the case at present with those who matriculate at the University of London, or in seine other way. I believe that the adoption of this course would greatly tend to raise the intellectual standard of one branch of the profession at least, and that it would have no inconsiderable influence in bring- ing about that fusion of it with the higher branch which, in the opinion of many, is eminently desirable, and only requires time to accomplish.-1 am, Sir, &c.,
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