don is the only one which has opened wide its doors to study and degrees, so wide that all who will work and satisfy high tests of their self-tuition and self-training can enter, in which respect it has incidentally taught the useful and very necessary habit of hard work, a means of self-discipline through effort to which too many nowadays refuse to subject themselves, preferring to look on while others work at games and sports, which, if the nation is to win even in those directions internationally, it will need to be reinforced by systematic gymnastics, as an essential element in all education, as I have seen at Columbia University, New York, and elsewhere, as at Harvard, where, too, the inductive method of teaching and learning law is also exemplary.

The open door of the University of London must not, then, be allowed to be closed, or left only half-open-the Commission report, which suggests some apparently innocent, but really dangerous, approaches in that direction, notwithstanding. The university is the university of the poor, especially in the middle class, no less than the man of means; it serves in this respect an enormous constituency; it has been made great use of by students in provincial cities and towns, especially those which do not possess the advantage of a few centres which have a university in their midst; and its degrees its examinational degrees have been sought by many of the most eminent lawyers of the day in both branches of the profession, and among the Judges, parliamentarians, and others at home, and also throughout the empire.

Therefore, I say, "Hands off," and repeat my reply to a commissioner who asked me in giving evidence whether I did not regard it as unfair to give the same degree to internal and external graduates. It depends upon the degree and the graduate; but, incidentally, the question shewed how little at least one of the commissioners knew of the university, a fact which is a weakness of their report, bearing as it does throughout, marks of an alien commission trying previous royal commissions, not open to the same crucial criticism, and re-framing statutes, organisations, and administrative systems which have not yet had time and experience for a real trial, but which, so far as they have been tried, point to the need of amendments according to experience, not to solution in a brand new melting pot.

Finally, our course at the Law Society seems to me clear. Let us stand to our arms; let us protect our financial re

sources for legal education, whether derived, as at present, in part by order of Court, from New and Clifford's Inns, or from our own funds, or other sources; let us continue, so long as is necessary, to develop and strengthen our own law school, so as to raise the status of our profession and to aid our articled clerks in properly and practically qualifying themselves, not only to pass our examinations but also by the study of law as both a science and a practical art, for the highest duties of the profession; and also for public life, in which they ought always to take their part, since the performance of public duty is the chivalry of to-day; meanwhile following courses of studies which will enable them to obtain the stamp of high degrees, whether by collegiate training or by examination, according to their times and circumstances; also to give us power and means for negotiation if and when the opportunity comes, as it surely will in the near future, be it in Parliament, or in the constituencies, or before the present, or new, Royal Commissioners, in the university, or any other bodies; and, when the occasion. does arise, to help to place legal education on the high platform it should always occupy in a country which still offers the best practical example to the world of the administration of public and private justice, and of the reconciliation of law and liberty, as distinguished from license, of which it has been said, by way of reproach even upon our own jurisprudence, but untruly, that these, like law and equity, are two things which God has joined together and Man has put asunder. Quis separabit? As Burle said it, in words singularly applicable to our present times: liberty, to be enjoyed, must be limited by law; for, where law ends there tyranny begins; and the tyranny is the same, be it the tyranny of a monarch or of a multitude; nay, the tyranny of the multitude may be the greater, since it is a multiplied tyranny.'

LEGAL EDUCATION.

II.-BY MR. J. W. BUDD.

(Ex-President of the Law Society.)

In The Law Journal.

I have been asked to write a short article on "Legal Education, with special reference to the present position of the scheme for the creation of a great School of Law." The task is a doubly difficult one, for it is impossible in the compass of a "short" note to deal adequately with so important a subject; and, moreover, the terms "Legal Education” and "School of Law" are capable of widely different interpretations.

So far as legal education generally is concerned, the facilities for acquiring it have been largely extended since it was dealt with in the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1846.

Taking first education in view of the practice at the Bar, the work in late years of the Council of Legal Education is too well known to your readers to require any comment from me. The work of the School of Law, established on a new and extended basis some. ten years ago by the Law Society, has, no doubt, by this time also become widely known. The more immediate object of this branch of our work is to equip articled clerks with a knowledge of the principles of law in view of their future practice as solicitors. This school is working effectively under an able principal, aided by a staff of very competent tutors and readers, and is attended by a large body of students, the number for last year being 274: and for their use the Law Society provides in its building in Chancery Lane a complete set of students' rooms, which are largely made use of by the students, and are managed by a committee on which the Council of the Society, the teaching staff, and the students are represented.

In a large number of provincial centres schools for the teaching of law to articled clerks have been established by provincial law societies mainly in association with local universities and in co-operation with the Law Society, which makes large annual grants in aid of the expenses of these local schools of law.

It must be recognised, therefore, that in the last halfcentury great strides have been made in the providing facilities for obtaining instruction in law for intending barristers and solicitors; and, parenthetically, it should be added that the instruction given in all cases is not confined merely to the branches of law which are calculated to be useful in after life practice or to those which are the subject of examinations before the students are either called to the Bar or admitted as solicitors.

This teaching of the principles of law is in fact almost universally supplemented in the case of students for the Bar by reading in the chambers of a practising barrister, and in the case of solicitor students service under articles of clerkship is compulsory.

Apart, moreover, from the special teaching provided by the Inns of Court and the Law Society for intending barristers and solicitors, the universities, both the old and the new, count for much in the teaching of law. At Oxford and Cambridge great strides in this direction have been made, and the names of Dicey, Maitland, and others have become household words, and there are faculties of law in all the modern universities of which men of eminence as teachers are members, and the reconstituted University of London (as a teaching university) has also a Faculty of Law.

The facilities for the study of law have, therefore, increased greatly since the idea of a great school of law was first broached. The first suggestion was that of a "Legal University," with the Inns of Court as constituent colleges. Lord Selborne's (then Sir Roundell Palmer's) proposal which included students for both branches of the profession, was for a "National School of Law." Lord Russell of Killowen, in his memorable address in Lincoln's Inn Hall, called it a "great school of law." The charter proposed in 1904 by Sir Robert Finlay was for a school of law of which the Inns of Court and the Law Society were to be the constituent parts and the governing body.

The Law Society has consistently, since the proposal was first started, been a warm supporter of every proposal for the establishment in London of a great National School of Law open to both branches of the profession; and the scheme of 1904 only fell through because it was impossible to secure the adhesion of all the Inns of Court.

At the present time few would be found among those competent to express an opinion on the subject who would for a moment hesitate to say that the foundation in London of a National and Imperial School of Law is a necessity.

It is useless to found such an institution unless it will possess adequate means to attract and keep the best teachers of law in all its ramifications. If Sir Robert Finlay's scheme had been carried through it would have formed an important nucleus for such an institution and it would no doubt in due course of time have secured national financial support.

It is not generally known how much of the income of the Inns of Court could and would have been made available for the purpose. The whole of the income of the Law Society available for this purpose is now spent on its existing-system of legal education; and any institution formed. under the joint auspices of the Inns of Court and the Law Society would require additional sources of income in order to become a national school worthy of the British Empire.

If such a school is to be a national institution its seat would necessarily be in London, but there is no reason why it should not have the co-operation and support of all our great universities, old and new.

The time is ripe, and more than ripe, for the establishment of a great national school. There are sufficient funds to commence with, and to make a beginning it only requires the co-operation of all the Inns of Court, and the adhesion of nearly all of them was, I believe, secured by Sir Robert Finlay in 1904 to the scheme then propounded. The facilities for legal education and the demand for it have largely increased in the last decade, and I trust that the time is not now far distant when practical shape will be given to the desire which is in the hearts of so many of us.