III.

Lecture in certain great principles of justice and right, to acquire knowledge of which is the primary object of legal education.

Conclu

sions stated.

The importance and value of the reports as authoritative examples, expositions, and applications of these principles, cannot be overrated; but it is easy to underrate the necessity and importance of elementary treatises. In the voluminous and unmethodized state of our law they are indispensable. It is not too much to say that under existing conditions they are absolutely necessary to the student, to the lawyer, and to the judge.

My conclusion is that in any well-considered system of legal education, oral instruction (including therein lectures, recitations, colloquies, moot-courts, etc.), text-books, and cases must go together. If I were to assign a relative value to the three, I would say the first in importance is the oral work of the teacher, and that he must use both the text-books and selected cases, not according to any rigid or prescribed system, but in such way that, according to his skilled judgment, the principles of law - the end to be sought can be the most easily and thoroughly mastered.

I believe, as an indifferent observer (although I attach little weight to my own judgment), that the discussion concerning the competing systems of "instruction by case-law" and "instruction by text-books" has already had one beneficial result, and that result is to show that neither of these methods should be the exclusive method; that possibly (though I do not state this upon personal knowledge of the matter) somewhat more of oral

III.

exposition and elementary instruction could be Lecture profitably carried into the case system, and somewhat more of the case system into what is known as the text-book system.

mode of

gested.

If I could realize my notion, under existing con- Advisable ditions, of the expedient mode of legal instruction, instruc I would assume that the students' minds were wholly tion suguninformed. I would call the class into the lectureroom, and selecting a subject, would orally outline or chalk out in the most elementary way its place in and its relations to the legal system, and the great principles that underlie it. Then, if the particular subject were well treated in some textbook, I would require that to be studied, and also to be studied some of the leading cases upon it. Whether on any given subject the case-system or some other system should predominate would depend, of course, on circumstances. The student should then be required to recite both upon the text-book and upon the selected cases, and to state, analyze, and discuss the latter, the professor's function being to see that the principles were mastered, and the mode in which they were applied in the selected cases fully understood.

The great test of the teacher is: Does he inspire enthusiasm in the student? Does he set him thinking? Does he make him work? If so, the particular mode in which he accomplishes this is comparatively unimportant.

I close with a brief reference to the legal character and faculties of the Inns. Their legal character has been clearly ascertained by numerous

III.

Legal

character

of Court.

Lecture decisions.1 The adjudged cases establish the following points: The Inns are voluntary societies, and not corporations; they have no charters, either from the of the Inns Crown or Parliament. They are self-governed. The courts cannot interfere with the internal management of their affairs. In respect of their acts or orders affecting members, they are not subject to the jurisdiction of the Courts of Westminster Hall proceeding according to the common law. They cannot be compelled by mandamus or otherwise to admit persons to become students or members of the society with the view of being called to the bar. This rests alone with the society. When admitted as members, the visitatorial power of the judges attaches, and the action of the society in refusing to call a member to the bar, or in expelling him from the society, or in depriving him of his gown, that is, disbarring him,

may be reviewed by the judges on an appeal (but in no other mode), against the orders complained of. The power to call members to the bar seems not to be oppressively or illiberally exercised, since it appears that during a period of twenty years only three students had been refused admission to the bar by the four Inns of Court.

1 The principal cases concerning the legal constitution and powers of the Inns of Court, and the extent of judicial control over them, are Booreman's case, March Rep. 177; Townshend's case, cited 2 T. Raymond, 1028; Rakestraw v. Brewer, Abridg. Cases in Equity, 162; Hart's case (Rex v. Gray's Inn), 1 Douglas, 354; Lord Rosslyn v. Jodrell, 4 Campbell, 303; 1 Starkie Rep. 148; Wooler's case, 4 Barn. & Cress. 855; May v. Harvey, 13 East, 197. In Hart's case, supra, the judges sustained the benchers of Gray's Inn in refusing to call Mr. Hart to the bar, for the reason, among others, that he had knowingly become security for money borrowed of others to a much greater amount than he was able to answer.

III.

Exclusive

power to

bar.

The most important faculty which the Inns exer- Lecture cise is the exclusive power, as legal colleges,1 to confer the degree of barrister-at-law or counsellor, which is an indispensable qualification to practise in the call to the courts of common law. A barrister can be created in no other way than by a call by one of the four Inns of Court. He cannot be created by letters patent, or be admitted as with us, by the authority of the court. The Inns of Court being independent of royal or executive power, no person called to the bar is indebted for the station to any authority except the governing body of the Inn of Court to which he belongs. To this cause has been attributed, in part, the spirit of independence, which, in the history of constitutional liberty, has been so often displayed by the Inns of Court, and which has at all times. characterized the members of the bar in asserting legal rights committed to their advocacy or defence.3 "Rare Ben Jonson," who, it is said, assisted his stepfather, a brick-layer, in erecting, in the reign of Elizabeth, a wall for Lincoln's Inn, dedicated a

1 Blackstone styles the Inns of Court "our Juridical University" (1 Com. 25); and Lord Coke, in a passage before quoted, styles them the "foure famous and renowned colleges or houses of Court," which altogether doe make the most famous Universitie for the profession of law, onely, that is in the world, and advanceth itself above all others." Ante Lecture II.

66

2 "Intrepidity in the discharge of professional duty is so common a quality at the English bar that it has, thank God, long ceased to be a matter of boast or praise. If it had been otherwise, gentlemen, if the bar could have been silenced or overawed by power, - I may presume to say that an English jury would not this day have been met to administer justice. Perhaps I need scarce say that my defence shall be fearless, in a place where fear never entered any heart but that of a criminal." Sir James Mackintosh's Speech in Defence of Jean Peltier, for a libel on the First Consul of France, delivered in the King's Bench, Feb. 21, 1803.

1

Lecture play "to the noblest nurseries of humanity and liberty, the Inns of Court."

III.

Requisites of being called to the bar.

Inns sui

generis in character.

A person who contemplates a call to the bar is required to be admitted as a student, — that is, to become a member of one of the four Inns, which any person of respectable character and educational attainments has no difficulty in doing; to dine in the common hall of the Inn a few days in the course of every term, that he may be seen and known, and if unfit, the more readily detected before his final application to be called to the bar; to keep in this manner, ordinarily twelve terms, and in addition, under more recent regulations before mentioned, to attend the lectures of the readers or professors in the Inn; and satisfactorily to pass a public examination for the purpose of ascertaining his fitness to be called to the bar. Having complied with these conditions, the student or member is eligible to be called, and, unless some good reason appears, is called to the bar.2

From this brief sketch it will be perceived that the Inns of Court are sui generis in their character.

1 Every Man out of his Humour.

2 The hospitality of the Inns in the matter of calls to the bar is shown in the case of Mr. Benjamin. "On January 13, 1866, Benjamin (Judah P.) was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn, and in Trinity Term of the same year, after six months' probation, was, by special grace, called to the bar. He was made a Queen's counsel of the County Palatine of Lancaster, with a patent of precedence dating from July 29, 1872, and afterwards full Queen's counsel. In April, 1875, he was made a bencher of Lincoln's Inn." "A Generation of Judges," London, 1888, article "Benjamin.”

That the reader may understand the preparation required and the mode of being "called" to the bar in the Inns, I reprint as a note (B) at the end of this lecture extracts from Mr. Serjeant Robinson's recent account thereof.