[The crown seems to have soon taken under its protection this infant seminary of common law; and, the more effectually to foster and cherish it, King Henry the Third, in the nineteenth year of his reign, issued out an order directed to the mayor and sheriffs of London, commanding that no regent of any law schools within that city should, for the future, teach law therein (s). The word law, or leges, being a general term, may create some doubt, at this distance of time, whether the teaching of the civil law, or the common, or both, is hereby restrained. But in either case it tends to the same end. If the civil law only is prohibited, (which is Mr. Selden's (t) opinion,) it is then a retaliation upon the clergy, who had excluded the common law from their seats of learning. If the municipal law be also included in the restriction, (as Sir Edward Coke (u) understands it, and which the words seem to import,) then the intention is evidently this; by preventing private teachers, within the walls of the city, to collect all the common lawyers into the one public university, which was newly instituted in the suburbs. In this juridical university (for such it is insisted to have been by Sir Edward Coke (v)) there were two sorts of collegiate houses; one called inns of chancery, in which the younger students of the law are usually placed, "learning and studying (says Fortescue (x)) the originals, and, as it were, the elements of the law; who, profiting therein, as they grew to ripeness, so were they admitted into the greater inns of the same study, called the inns of court." And in these inns of both kinds, he goes on to tell us, the knights and barons, with other grandees and noblemen of the realm, did use to place their children, though they did not desire to have them thoroughly learned in the law, or to get their living by its practice; and that in his time there were about two thousand students at these seve (s) Ne aliquis scholas regens de legibus in eadem civitate de cætero ibidem leges doceat. (u) 2 Inst. proëm. (t) In Flet. 8, 2. [ral inns, all of whom he informs us were filii nobilium, gentlemen born. Hence it is evident, that (though under the influence of the monks our universities neglected this study, yet) in the time of Henry the Sixth it was thought highly necessary, and was the universal practice, for the young nobility and gentry to be instructed in the originals and elements of the laws. But by degrees this custom has fallen into disuse; which seems principally owing to these reasons; first, because in these societies all sorts of regimen and academical superintendence, either with regard to morals or studies, have been thought impracticable, and therefore entirely neglected: lastly, because persons of birth and fortune, after having finished their usual courses at the universities, have seldom leisure or resolution sufficient to enter upon a new scheme of study at a new place of instruction.] At the present day the inns of chancery have accordingly sunk into insignificance, and an admission to them is no longer of any avail to the student in his progress to the bar. And even the resort to the inns of court is now very much confined to those to whom the knowledge of practice is absolutely necessary, that is, such as are intended for the profession. (y) The inns of court still enjoy, however, their ancient and exclusive privilege of conferring the rank or degree of barrister at law; the possession of which (or of the higher degree of serjeant) constitutes an indispensable qualification for practising as an advocate in the superior courts at Westminster. No other means of obtaining it exist but (y) The inns of court are the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn. The Inns of chancery are Clifford's Inn, Clement's Inn, Lyon's Inn, New Inn, Thavies' Inn, Staples' Inn, and Barnard's Inn. Furnival's Inn (which formerly belonged to the latter class) has now ceased to exist as a law society. As to the constitution of the inns of court and chancery, vide Pref. to 3d Rep. Dugd. Orig. Jud.; Rex v. Gray's Inn, Doug. 353; Rex v. Lincoln's Inn, 4 Barn. & Cres. 855; Rex v. Barnard's Inn, 5 Ad. & El. 17. that of becoming enrolled as a student in one or other of these inns, and applying, after a certain period, to its principal officers (or benchers) for a call to the bar. As a qualification for the call, the student must have kept commons for three years (i. e. twelve terms), by dining in the hall of the society at least three times in each term; and it is farther required in two of the inns of court that he should have been a member of the society for five years, unless he have taken the degree of master of arts or bachelor of law in the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, or Dublin, in which case three will be sufficient. But the present system of the inns of court involves (as already remarked) nothing of academical discipline or institution, nor is the applicant for a call to the bar subjected to any previous examination as to his professional knowledge.(z) The business of legal education has in fact been long conducted in private channels, a method which experience has proved to be efficacious, the usual plan being to obtain admission into the chambers of a practising barrister, conveyancer or special pleader, where, in addition to the opportunities of observing the course of practice, the pupil enjoys for some years the advantage of tuition in the grounds and principles of the law. To those however who prefer the method of scholastic instruction, the means are not wanting. For lectures on the laws of England have for some years past been given at King's College and University College in London; and though no provision as we have seen was anciently made for this branch of science at Cambridge or Oxford, the deficiency has been long since redressed by the munificence of private donors, who at each university have founded professorships, with ample endowments for that purpose. (s) It has been a rule, however, at the Inner Temple since 1829, that no person shall be admitted a student of the society without a previous exami nation by a barrister appointed for that purpose, who is to certify his competency in classical attainments, and the general subjects of a liberal education. SECTION II. OF THE NATURE OF LAWS IN GENERAL. By the term Laws we here intend to denote the rules [of human action or conduct; that is, the precepts by which man, the noblest of all sublunary beings, a creature endowed with both reason and free-will, is commanded to make use of those faculties in the general regulation of his behaviour. Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator, for he is entirely a dependent being. A being, independent of any other, has no rule to pursue, but such as he prescribes to himself; but a state of dependence will inevitably oblige the inferior to take the will of him on whom he depends as the rule of his conduct; not, indeed, in every particular, but in all those points wherein his dependence consists. This principle, therefore, has more or less extent and effect, in proportion as the superiority of the one and the dependence of the other is greater or less, absolute or limited. And consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for every thing, it is necessary that he should, in all points, conform to his Maker's will. This will of his Maker is called the law of nature. For as God, when he created matter, and endued it with a principle of mobility, established certain rules for the perpetual direction of that motion, so, when he created man, and endued him with free-will to conduct himself in all parts of life, he laid down certain immutable laws of human nature, whereby that free-will is in some degree re [gulated and restrained, and gave him also the faculty of reason to discover the purport of those laws. Such, among others, are these principles: that we should live reputably, should hurt nobody, and should render to every one his due; to which three general precepts Justinian (a) has reduced the whole doctrine of law.] The constitution and frame of humanity are in this respect, as in all others, so contrived as to afford a striking proof of the benevolence of the great Creator. For he has so intimately connected, so inseparably interwoven the laws of eternal justice with the happiness of each individual, that if the former be punctually obeyed, it cannot but induce the latter. In consequence of which mutual connexion of justice and human felicity, we ought to consider the law of nature not as made up of a multitude of abstracted rules and precepts, referring merely to the fitness or unfitness of things, as some have vainly surmised, but as graciously reduced to [this one paternal precept, "that man should pursue his own true and substantial happiness." This is the foundation of what we call ethics, or natural law; for the several articles into which it is branched in our systems, amount to no more than demonstrating that this or that action tends to man's real happiness, and therefore concluding that the performance of it is a part of the law of nature; or, on the other hand, that this or that action is destructive of man's real happiness, and therefore that the law of nature forbids it.] But though the real basis of the law of nature is a tendency to promote human happiness, and though to a certain extent this consideration affords a practical test, whether a given course of conduct be naturally right or not, yet the fallibility of human reason, and its inability to judge of the ultimate consequences of things, will in general preclude the application of such a test to parti (a) Juris præcepta sunt hæc, honeste vivere, alterum non lædere, suum cuique tribuere. Inst. 1. 1.3. The word honeste in this passage has been ren dered by Blackstone honestly, which (as remarked by Christian) scarcely conveys the full meaning. |