do in the present? No one can be satisfied with the present state of legal education; its systematic study is in this country neglected at a time when the appreciation of legal principles is more necessary than ever. For in the midst of an overwhelming mass of case and statute law legal principles are the only safe guide. Solicitors are subject to examination, but the teaching they receive has to be found by themselves. Quite to the end of the seventeenth century attorneys were members of the Inns of Court. They were suffered as members mainly for the purposes of legal education. In the orders of 1574, which have already been referred to, we read that “if any hereafter admitted in Court practice as attorney or solicitor, they to be dismissed and expulsed out of their houses thereupon, except the persons that be solicitors shall also use the exercising of learning and mooting in the House, and so be allowed by the Bench." As the difference in the nature of the work done by barristers and attorneys became more marked the exclusiveness of the Inns of Court became greater. In 1635 there was an order that no attorney or common solicitor be admitted, yet in spite of it attorneys were certainly members of the society at a still later period. This modern exclusiveness should be altered. The Inns of Court might resume their functions as great legal colleges. They should not limit the legal education which they give to students who intend to practise as barristers. There should, too, be a closer relation between the Inns of Court and the universities. The study of law at Oxford or Cambridge in most instances takes the place of studies which should precede it; and there is a tendency to use the law schools of the universities for the purposes of professional rather than of general educa

tion. The educational system of the Inns of Court should form either a post-graduate course of legal study for those who have already graduated in more general studies at the universities, or be followed simultaneously with an ordinary university career. This is no more impossible than is the practice of preparing for the Civil Service examinations during the university vacations. Some kind of relationship between the Inns of Court and the universities must, however, be established before the former can be brought into their right position as educational factors. At present nothing is more remarkable than the complete separation and want of sympathy, educationally considered, between the universities and the Inns of Court. Some kind of touch between the two bodies might be created were, as would be quite possible, the professors. and teachers of law at the universities to be members of the governing bodies of the Inns of Court. At the present moment, when the Inns of Court attempt to deal with legal education, the names of the legal teachers of the universities-men much more eminent than some of the practitioners who by age or forensic success become members. of the Bench-are conspicuously absent. It is impossible that legal education can be satisfactorily dealt with by men who are without experience in legal education. It may, indeed, be doubted whether a successful professional man can ever, without assistance, be a desirable manager of what should be a college or university. The tendency of his mind is alien to academic thought; in the stress of mature work he necessarily loses touch of elementary teaching. On the other hand, the professional and the academic elements, properly united, make a better managing body than either

alone. If this be so, it is obvious that the educational authority of the Inns of Court-the Council of Legal Education should have upon it some of those who at the universities have passed their lives in legal teaching and in the consideration of methods of study. In an age of great intellectual activity, when legal principles are entering every day into social and business relations, it is absurd to suppose that, if the teaching of law by the Inns of Court were placed on a broader and more scientific basis, and made more adequate both in regard to legal principles and professional practice, it would not eagerly be taken advantage of. A great school of law in the capital of the British Empire could hardly fail to attract students from all parts of the world, and the increasing facility of intercourse between the oversea dominions of the Crown and England would render it possible for the Inns of Court to again fill the large place which they held in past times. The social life of the Inns of Court has died out; yet in other respects it can scarcely be doubted that there are opportunities of usefulness open which the traditions of these great societies still render feasible (x).

The Inns of Court, though they have in recent years shown some signs of a recognition of the possibilities of their position, are far from having regained the place which the records published in late years so vividly recall to us. To the law school of Bologna students in the Middle Ages came from all parts of Europe, drawn thither by the excellence of the teaching. Is there any reason why in the immediate future societies

(x) Upon Lord Westbury's attempt to carry out this idea in 1846, see ante, p. 195.

with so noble an historic past as the Inns of Court should not become the central law school of England and her dependencies? The imperial idea is not necessarily one of expanding boundaries or growing navies; its development also lies in the strengthening of the connexion of England and her colonies by a common education in an ancient and common jurisprudence.

CHAPTER XII.

A RETROSPECT.

In the first pages of this book a sketch was given of the beginnings of English law, and the legal scene was briefly surveyed for the first three centuries after the destruction of the Anglo-Saxon polity. Some phases and events in the growth of law and procedure since that time have also been depicted, and their places in the evolution of our legal system have been suggested. It may be useful in this final chapter to summarise some conclusions which may be formulated as we glance at the several subjects which have been discussed.

Two cardinal points seem to emerge from this survey -the flexibility and the permanence of English jurisprudence. The general groundwork of law and procedure once settled, the growth proceeded on the same general lines. There was never any drastic change such as, for example, occurred in France after the fall of the monarchy of Louis XVI. Even during the Commonwealth, as has been told, such changes as were proposed were in the nature of remedies and not of revolutions. The amalgamation in 1873 of the famous Courts of Common Law and Chancery into one Supreme Court, though superficially a momentous change, putting an end as it did to tribunals which had for centuries an independent existence, was