The Literary Year Book and Bookman's Directory, 1903. London: George Allen. Although this work has only reached its seventh year, it has already made an exceedingly strong position for itself, and this is scarcely to be wondered at, seeing that the contents must be found extremely useful by all those who are in any way connected with literature. The Editor of the present volume, Mr. Henry Gilbert, points out that in preparing this edition his endeavour has been rather to continue and extend the features already inaugurated than to introduce new sections, and, looking to the fact that no section at present included in the work is superfluous, we think Mr. Gilbert does well not to add any new features, as this would perhaps tend to render unwieldy what is at present an extremely handy work of reference.

Other books and publications received :- - Barham's Student's Text-book of Roman Law; Nicolas' Formation of Companies; Barlow and Macan's Education Act, 1902; Questions of English Divorce (Grant Richards); Roscoe's Admiralty Practice; Roby's Private Roman Law; Hart's Law of Auctioneers; Lely's Annual Statutes, 1902; Mews' Annual Digest, 1902; Beal's Yearly Digest, 1902; Mather's Sheriff and Execution Law; Rawlinson and Johnston's Municipal Corporation Act; Rawlins' Specific Performance of Contracts; Wright's Estates Gazette Digest of Cases; Moore's History of the Law of Fisheries; Scrutton's Law of Copyright; Richards and Lynn's Education Acts, 1870-1902; Oke's Handy Book of Fishery Laws; Will's Electric Lighting, etc.; Paterson's Prac tical Statutes, 1902; Jelf and McBarnet's Some London Institutions, etc.; Reports of the High Court of the South African Republic, 1894; Reeson's Metropolis Water Act; Bartley's Metropolis Water Act; Clegg and Robertson's Digest of Cases under Workmen's Compensation Acts; Brodie-Innes' Comparative Principles of the Laws of England and Scotland; Lisle's Encyclopædia of Accounting, Vol. I; English Reports, Vol. XXVI; Public Provisions of the Metropolis Water Act, 1902, by J. Reeson; The Professional Criminal in England, by the Revd. W. D. Morrison, LL.D.; Natal Law Quarterly, Index to Vol. I; The Humane Review; The Northern Securities Cases, by Carman F. Randolph; Journal of Comparative Legislation; Canada Law Review; Compensation in Licensing, by Sir Ralph Littler; New York State Library, Bulletin No. 79; Report of American Bar Association, 1902.

The Law Magazine and Review receives or exchanges with the following amongst other publications:-Review of Reviews, Juridical Review, Public Opinion, Law Times, Law Journal, Justice of the Peace, Law Quarterly Review, Irish Law Times, Australian Law Times, Speaker, Canada Law Journal, Canada Law Times, Chicago Legal News, American Law Review, American Law Register, Harvard Law Review, Case and Comment, Green Bag, Virginia Law Register, Albany Law Journal, Madras Law Journal, Calcutta Weekly Notes, Law Notes, Law Students' Journal, Westminster Review, Bombay Law Reporter, Medico-Legal Journal, Indian Review, Kathiawar Law Reports, The Lawyer (India), South African Law Journal, Columbia Law Review, Japan Register.

THE

LAW MAGAZzine and ReVIEW.

No. CCCXXIX.-AUGUST, 1903.

I. A GENERAL SCHOOL OF LAW.

Τουτ vient à point à qui sait attendre. Those who, like

the present writer, have been long insisting that Legal Education in England should be raised to a higher plane, have now a prospect of seeing their ideals realized. Occasions there are when money is more powerful than argument, and the money that was wanted is at last forthcoming. It has reached us from an unexpected source-from the sale of the sites of a couple of those ancient nurseries, or preparatory schools, of law, formerly known as "Inns of Chancery."

Many have been of late years the structural changes in London, and these have brought other changes in their train. Clifford's Inn, an appanage of the Inner Temple, New Inn, an appanage of the Middle Temple, have disappeared one by one. They have shared the fate of Clement's Inn and Furnivall's Inn, of Barnard's Inn and Staple's Inn, overthrown by the advancing wave of Metropolitan betterment. Even the memories of these picturesque hostelries are fast fading away. Two only have been rescued from oblivion, and bid fair to "blossom in the dust." In the action of Smith v. Kerr, decided last year, the Chancery Division of the High Court directed Clifford's Inn to be sold, and impressed with a charitable trust £45,000 of the

purchase-money. Another order, made about the same time in Attorney-General v. Coldham, impressed with a similar trust £55,000 of the purchase-money of New Inn. These amounts, making a total of £100,000, now fall to be dealt with by a " charitable scheme," and are to be devoted to legal education in some shape at present undetermined.

As soon as the news of this lucky windfall got abroad, numerous claimants presented themselves. The Council of Legal Education, the University of London, the great colleges of Manchester, Liverpool, and Leeds, with many others, sought to participate in the fund. If all had been listened to, the fund would have been frittered away without producing any particular effect beyond arousing jealousies and causing disappointments. Sir Robert Finlay, with laudable insight, took a broader view of the position. He considered that an opportunity had arisen for establishing in London a great School of Law, under Charter or Act of Parliament, in which provision should be made for the systematic and scientific teaching of all those branches of jurisprudence which are administered throughout the British Empire. The note he thus sounded was an Imperial note, in keeping with the spirit of the time. It was, moreover, a true note, for it echoed the general opinion that there are in our educational system sundry weak places which call for instant therapeutic treatment.

A few years ago I sketched in this Review the system of legal education then in force in Germany, France, Belgium, and the United States, and showed how in some respects they were superior to our own. But in all practical matteṛs, from politics to poultry-rearing, one has to be something of an opportunist. Whilst continuing to look at the question from the standpoint of one who desires that the reputation of his country for learning should not fall behind that of any other nation, I shall here deal with the subject on fresh lines and endeavour to put new life into it. Indeed

the main aim of my former paper will not serve to-day. I there urged the establishment of a Faculty of Law in connection with a Teaching University, that seeming then to be the only way of compassing the end in view. The Teaching University is, however, now in existence, and of a Faculty of Law, as a living organic part of it, there is no immediate prospect. Yet the situation has been saved by the acquisition of this £100,000. It has rendered practicable a Central Law School of the Empire, independent, indeed, for the moment of that University, but capable of being affiliated to it hereafter, if that should be thought desirable.

The conception of a Metropolitan School of Law is not a novel one. In the sixteenth century, Lord Keeper Bacon, sometime Treasurer of Gray's Inn and father of the illustrious Francis Bacon, drafted, in conjunction with two of his friends, a scheme for a central school "where young men of good family might be taught Law" and kindred subjects. The endowment was to be provided out of the confiscated revenues of the dissolved monasteries. The project fell through because the proceeds of these monasteries were distributed amongst the favourites of the Crown, the Lord Keeper himself sharing in the spoil. But Sir Nicholas Bacon's idea was not extinguished, and was destined to be revived in other forms later on.

In 1846, a Select Committee of the House of Commons declared that a proper system of legal education ought to be provided to meet not only the wants 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. A like suggestion was made by a Royal Commission appointed in 1855. This Commission was composed of the most eminent lawyers of the day, amongst them being Sir W. P. Wood (Lord Hatherley), Sir Alexander Cockburn (Lord Chief Justice), and Sir Richard

Bethell (Lord Westbury). In 1862, Lord Cairns induced the Benchers of Lincoln's Inn to pass a resolution to the effect "that in their opinion the Constitution of a legal "University, to which the various Inns of Court might be "affiliated was desirable." In 1868, Mr. W. J. Jevons, a solicitor of Liverpool, in a paper which he read at Leeds before the Conference of Provincial Law Societies, proposed that there should be established a "General school of law" to be maintained out of the revenues of the Inns of Court and such of the Inns of Chancery as were then subsisting.

In 1870, the "Legal Education Association" was formed in London to carry out Mr. Jevons' proposal. In 1872, Sir Roundell Palmer, President of the Association, moved in the House of Commons that "a General School of Law should be established in the Metropolis, by public authority, for the instruction of Students intending to practise in any branch of the legal profession and of all other subjects of Her Majesty who might desire to resort thereto." Mr. Gladstone, then Prime Minister, in the course of a sympathetic speech, suggested that it would be better to proceed by Bill than by Resolution. A division was called for, and the motion was lost. Not long after, Sir R. Palmer, who had now become Lord Chancellor, introduced a bill in the House of Lords to the same effect as his resolution. was vigorously opposed by the Inns of Court, who petitioned Parliament against it. It passed the Second Reading in 1877, reached the Report stage, and was not further proceeded with.

It

Such is, in brief, the history of the proposal recently put forward by Sir R. Finlay in Mr. Justice Farwell's Court. The judge characterized it as "magnificent." Some will doubtless pronounce it to be a vain illusion-one of those utopias which are pleasant to dream of but are unsuited to a practical age. In order to discover on which side the truth lies, we must shortly consider the kind of education