HISTORY OF EDUCATION FOR THE ENGLISH BAR..
Tin subject of legal education is one in which the public are at last beginning to be conscious of having an interest. Its impor- tance demands the most careful consideration, and it is satisfac- tory to observe that the members of both branches of the profession, anticipating the public demand, are making effosts to raise the status of the practitioners of the law, both educationally and professionally. Mr. Smith's volume comes seasonably to re- mind us, in an unpretending form, of the history of the Educational System already existing. Starting from the earliest times, when we find the first records of the ancient law schools, soon after the date of Magna Charta, we are conducted to the present day, with its voluntary examinations' studentships, and gold medals. Abandoning any attempt to fix the dates of the institution of the Inns of Court as impossible, the author quotes the testimony of Chancellor Fortescue in the reign of Henry VI., when we obtain the.firat thentic glimpse of the "Inns" which still dot the metropolis. ,
"From thence it appears that there was alkitbssfair_the study of the laws,
situated in a suburb of the city near the King's Court.71ind tslag every day of pleading the Court was frequented by the students ; a n -thir place of study there were ten lesser inns (and sometimes more), called Inns of Chancery, to each of which belonged a hundred students at least, and to some more, though they were not always in residence at the same time. Most of these students were young, learning the first principles of law, and, as they advanced in learning and grew to riper years, they were admitted into the larger inns, called Inns of Court. These larger inns were four in number, having two hundred students a-piece, or nearly so. Fortescue then mentions how costly it was to live at them, especially for those who had their own servants, as most had ; and how, in consequence, these inns were chiefly filled with gentlemen by birth. In the larger and the lesser inns not only law, but also lighter accomplishments were cultivated—singing among the number. There too, in the intervals of their study of the laws, they appear to have given time largely to the study of the Scriptures, and of chronicles, and the sons of persons of quality were placed there for the sake of general education though their fathers did not design them to live in the practice of the profession."
Hence the origin of Lyon's Inn with a date so far back as the reign of Henry Y., and Clement's Inn in the time of Edward IV. Clifford's Inn became the property of the lawyers in the 18th, Edward III., at which time, Thavies Inn was inhabited by the apprentices of the law. Furnival's Inn goes back to Henry IV.; Staples Inn to Henry Ir. ; and Barnard's Inn to Fleury VI. New Inn was created and occupied by a shoal of lawyers, who migrated from St. George's [nn; but where the latter was situated, and where it is now, is difficult to tell.
Such being the origin of our legal educational establishments, Mr. Smith takes up their story and pursues it with great learning,
but yet no unnecessary detail, through the middle ages, noticing in passing the regulation as to admission into the Inns of Court ; the commons • dress ; moots and exercises of the students. The
benciters in olden times would be a little at issue on one point with the present generation :—
" Particular attention was directed to beards, and they fell under heavy censure. At Lincoln's Inn, in Queen Elizabeth's reign, it was ordered, that
no fellow of the house should wear any beard above a fortnight's growth,
and any One who transgressed the rule was for the first offence to forfeite 3s. 4d., for the second, 6s. 81., and the third time to be banished th house."
There was, however, a beard movement even in those days, for -we find that the benchers yielded :— "But the fashion at that time of wearing beards grew then so pre- dominant, as that the very next year following, at a council held in this house, upon the 27th of Novel:41;er, it was agreed and ordered, that all orders before that time made, touching beards, should be void and repealed.', Passing over the ancient practices of instruction, Mr. Smith starts with the decay of those in the seventeenth century, and intro- duces and enforces the views of all the great luminaries of the law who have left their views on the subject upon record. It has been well said that "the ashes of all the sciences are taken up in the law," and therefore it seems only proper and necessary that the lawyer should be a person of liberal education. But it is one of the errors of the present day to recommend to incipient lawyers multifarious studies. Thus we find the example of Sir Matthew Hale quoted with admiration, because he pursued mathematics, natural philosophy, and mental science, in addition to the even • History of Education for the English Bar; with Suggestions as to Subjects and Methods of Study. By Philip Anstie Smith, of the Inner Temple, M ,A,. Barrister-at-Law. Published by Butterworth. more recondite subjeets of theology. So with much commenda- tion, the names of York, Somers, Jones, Hardwick, Lough- borough, Erskine, and Romilly are quoted as persons of polite education. In fast every lawyer, when young, is expected to make himself an admirable Crichton ; and, as a result, we have highly educated but unpractical men of business. The men who get on best at the bar are those who have been trained not only in the quadrangle of a college, but in the wide university of the world. Mr. Smith takes a more moderate view than most advisers of the young as to the quantity of acquired attainments, and limits his special recommendations to the study of metaphysics, history, and ethics. Especially does he enforce the value of moral philo- sophy, "Which forms a natural companion to mental philosophy, may be thought even more obviously connected with the business of an advocate. For while it is one function of ethics to discuss questions of right and wrong, the vindication of rights and the redress of wrongs occupy a large part of the province of law. And, although what is morally right is not, to its fullest extent, enforced by law,—and the law passes over much that is wrong,—yet in the case of the rights and wrongs with which it is conver- sant, its rules are affected by, if not grounded on, the moral character of actions. With whatever imperfections and deviations, the maintenance of what is morally just may be considered as its general object ; and some specific forms of moral wrong—violence, fraud, breach of engagements, are in certain cases, though not in all, the subjects of punishment or compensa- tion. It is true that courts are guided by legal rules and not by rules of ethics ; but at points where statutory and judicial authorities are silent or irreconcilably conflicting, the appeal is not unfrequently to moral argu- ments. These topics intervene to affect the measure of damages when they are not relevant to the dry legal question for which party a jury is to find ; and when a judge has for the first time to determine a matter which no earlier cases govern, he may well be urged to let the general right and wrong of the claims at issue influence his decision. If we look to master- pieces of forensic eloquence, in Curran', or Erskine's speeches, or to the eloquence of the bench in the judgments of Lord Mansfield and Sir William Grant, we shall not find the moral aspects of suits entirely excluded from attention. And, if from these examples we descend to the ordinary present course of business in courts, such topics will be found to have place in it still."
Want of space prevents our even touching many of the topics suggested by Mr. Smith, as to Education in Public Speaking ; Self Education, and Private Tuition. All these matters are handled in a masterly and informing manner to the reader. But in the present transitional state of legal education from the voluntary to the compulsory, a question will necessarily come to be considered as to the amalgamation of the two branches of the profession. goes to establish the necessity of a corn- it the Law Institution for the attorney, 'ty in the Inns of Court. And whatever tents of the counsel, they are equally
pulsoV vaerial equally proR" may be the require...... to be desiderated for •:,,rs of what is called, at present, "the lower branch oftax 4°sFth v- When the examinations are rendered equally compulst isicr)..,fmtire body of practitioners will occupy their proper place, afrr. t to have opened to the same rewards. Meanwhile, °NgnsmecearnitastalmT4 towar04 attainment of this common end, we s"Itgrum" th's "236'365
which is certainly the most modest, anti p.ose to be the most useful treatise yet extant on 4.. .ot of Legal Education. .5111.
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