Court, or will it be complementary to it? Can the two systems work together, and work harmoniously together? What are to be their respective provinces? Finally is the scheme to be abandoned which contemplated the formation. of a great School of Law fostered by and under the control of the Inns of Court, with such outside aid as it may elect, or may be required to draw into its Councils?

I know there are some persons (but I believe they are few) who are content with things as they are, and who will say that the teachers in the new Faculty may do some good, and that the Inns of Court may accept their testamur in certain subjects, but that, for the rest, things may be allowed to go on as they are.

I do not propose to attempt to answer in detail the questions which I have suggested: my sole object is to urge upon the friends of Legal Education that the time has come when it is incumbent upon them to take counsel together and to determine upon some course of action-to consider whether they are to allow things to continue to drift or whether they are not now called upon in the interests of the Profession and of the Public to make a determined effort to place matters on a more satisfactory basis.

In my address delivered in the autumn of 1895, at the instance of the Council of Legal Education, I gave a brief history of legal education in England, and, while giving credit to the Council for their efforts, I pointed out what I conceived to be the defects and the shortcomings of the existing system.

I shall not repeat here what I then said further than is necessary to recall some important facts in connection with the history of legal education, and to restate briefly why, as I think, the existing system falls below the needs of the

case.

The Report of the Commons Committee of 1846 was a complete condemnation of the then existing state of

things it declared that a proper system of Legal Education ought to meet the wants, not only of the professional but also of the unprofessional student, and that the four Inns of Court should form an aggregate of Colleges or Law University. Finally it suggested that, if the Inns of Court failed to act voluntarily, the pressure of a further Commission should be brought to bear upon them. No doubt things have improved since then, but the main suggestion of a Law University has passed unheeded.

The sole outcome of the report of 1846 was the appointment in 1852 of a Standing Council of eight Benchers, who framed a scheme of lectures in five subjects, namely: (1) Jurisprudence and Roman Law; (2) Real Property; (3) Common Law; (4) Equity; and (5) Constitutional Law and Legal History. The student still had his choice of reaching the Bar either by (1) passing an examination, (2) attending two sets of lectures over one year, or (3) attending one year in practice chambers. Again in 1855 public discontent was manifested by the appointment of another Commission, which included such distinguished men as Sir W. Page Wood (Lord Hatherley), Sir Alexander Cockburn, and Sir R. Bethell (Lord Westbury), and again the then existing system was condemned. The report insists on the necessity for a preliminary examination before admission as a student, and for a final or test examination before call to the Bar. Seventeen years elapsed before the last requirement was (in 1872) complied with. The Incorporated Law Society had, as far back as 1836, insisted on this condition. Lastly, the report strongly recommends the formation of the four Inns of Court into a Legal University, and insists that the necessary funds shall be provided by the Inns of Court. Later still in 1872 Sir Roundell Palmer (Lord Selborne) carried a resolution in the Commons affirming the necessity for giving effect to the foregoing recommendation, and in 1877 a Bill for the same object passed a second reading in

the House of Lords. Still nothing in this direction has been done! Unquestionably considerable improvements have been effected.

They are these: (1) Final examination before call is compulsory; (2) the powers and numbers of the Council of Legal Education have been increased; (3) the public may be admitted to the lectures; and (4) the Council may arrange for special lectures by special lecturers. Further, it cannot be denied that the curriculum is comprehensive, although it does not include (amongst other subjects) either comparative Law or Colonial Law. But how are the subjects dealt with? For subjects so important and far reaching as Constitutional Law and Legal History there is but one reader and no assistant reader; and Roman Law, International Law, and Jurisprudence are under the guardianship of one reader and one assistant reader.

But there is wanting in the system pursued that tutorial element which forms so important a part of any effective system of teaching. I do not doubt that the lectures are good and the lecturers able men, but with them teaching is not the business of their lives. They lecture and depart; the individual student is not known to them; they are not at hand to help over difficulties or to advise, and above all there is no catechetical instruction which, after all, affords the best means of judging whether the pupil is keeping abreast of his master and assimilating the knowledge presented to him. The latest act of the Council seems to make it clear that under existing conditions it is hopeless and indeed unreasonable to expect that the reader or assistant reader can perform tutorial supervision, or take any but a passing interest in his work. The Council has at one swoop displaced all the readers and assistant readers of last year. If this were done because these gentlemen had proved inefficient, all credit to the Council for their resolute action. But it is not so. I know on competent authority

as to, at least, several of the lecturers that they had done their work with great zeal, ability and thoroughness. The explanation given to me by one of the Council is that the Council thought, if they did not effect frequent changes and thus permitted the idea to grow up that the teachers should be continued in office so long as they did their work well, it would be interfering with them in the pursuit of their profession and it would be unfair to remove them later. Are then these readerships and assistant readerships to be regarded as offices which can be adequately filled by young men on the threshold of their professional lives without any prior experience in teaching? Are they to be dispensed, as the office of revising barrister is dispensed, as a kind of patronage to be given as a help to the barrister in the earlier years of his career but to be abandoned when experience had made him a useful teacher? Is it possible that men can take pride in their work under such conditions? It seems to me that such a policy renders it impossible to look to the creation of an experienced professional class of teacher, and suggests that all that is expected from the Council teachers is that they shall be able to "coach up" the students sufficiently well to be able to pass the test or final examination. So regarded, is the teacher acting under such conditions far removed from a crammer?

But the practical question is, does the final examination afford any reliable test of adequate knowledge of the law?

I showed in 1895 by concrete examples that it does not. In one case an Oxford student had taken his degree in law, passing in the fourth class, but he had broken down in Roman Law. In the beginning of November, 1894, he went to a skilful " coach," and after one month's "coaching" he passed a "satisfactory" examination in the subjects in the curriculum, including Roman Law. The

other example was even more remarkable. He also was an Oxford man. He had obtained his Science Degree in the summer of 1894. He had attended no Law Lectures. He began to read for the Bar in October, 1894, and in December he passed his examination in Roman Law. In April, 1895, he passed his examination in Constitutional Law and Legal History. He then began to read for his examination in the whole field of English Law, from Common Law and Equity to Real Property Law and Criminal Law and Procedure. In two months he "satisfactorily" passed! The fact is, although the members of the Council may not know it, that under the existing system students rely far more upon the "Bar Examination Guide" and similar publications, and upon the "cramming" of the able and ingenious gentlemen who edit them, than they do upon the knowledge they derive from either readers or assistant readers. No doubt the difficulty of the "crammer" occurs in most branches of teaching, but it can largely be counteracted by a greater use of the catechetical system and by bringing into debate in class the subjects of the lectures, and by the discussion of decided cases involving principles.

. I say then that the system is bad and must be remedied. It is not creditable to the profession or to the Inns of Court, and the profession cannot be too strongly reminded that they possess exclusive rights of audience and of office, the continuance of which can only be justified by superior attainments. As to the other branch of the profession matters are, so far as London is concerned, even worse. Lectures there are none, but there is a kind of tutorial instruction by post. In some of the provincial towns, for example, Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, the local Incorporated Law Societies provide lecturers, but still it is the "crammer" who is generally relied on to pull the student through.