examinations and class lists, and the comparatively slight stress laid upon them in the United States. There is no need to compel or induce a youth to work by the hope of a First Class or the fear of being plucked when he is urged to labour by incipient and ardent professional ambition. Every teacher who keeps his eyes open must have been struck by the way in which not only the industry but the intellectual energy of many a young man is increased when he passes from the University to a barrister's chambers or a solicitor's office.

To say that an English University cannot, as regards the teaching of the law, copy Harvard is a very different thing from saying that the experience of the great American Law School does not contain valuable lessons for us at Oxford.

The experiment set on foot by Professor Langdell and carried out by himself and his colleagues, establishes the pre-eminent value of the catechetical system as applied to the study of cases. The most that can be said against the scheme of instruction pursued at Harvard is that its merits would be increased if it were supplemented to a greater extent than it is by the kind of lectures which are to be heard at English and at Continental Universities. The teachers of Harvard are admirable expositors of legal theories: there is no reason why they should confine themselves to the practice of catechetics; a friend may also be allowed to add that the teaching of law, as probably of other subjects, at Harvard might gain a good deal as an instrument of education if it were possible to introduce more than appears to exist of the personal relation between teacher and pupil ; this intimate personal relation is the great merit of the tutorial system which itself may be looked upon as the fruit of life in college. Still, subject to these reservations, the Harvard method, where it can be applied, is in itself simply admirable. Where the pupils can be induced to perform their part by giving oral answers to questions asked in class, and by carefully getting up cases before attendance at lecture, no plan of legal teaching is so stimulating or so full of instruction. Nor ought it to be impossible, though the difficulties of achieving the end desired are considerable, for Oxford undergraduates to create for themselves societies for the formal conduct of legal argument. To extend the use of catechetics and to encourage the formation of law clubs are objects of which the zealous body of lawteachers existing at both our Universities should never lose sight.

American experience, in the second place, shows the expediency of creating, if possible, a course of post-graduate legal study, in which the teaching may be at once scientific and professional. The condition of things at Oxford suggests, at any rate, one of the means by which this end may be in part attained. The undergraduates who go into the jurisprudence school are many of them most promising pupils.

Still they are undergraduates going through a University curriculum, and not men who, having taken a degree, are about to enter upon the profession of law. The B.A.s who read for the B.C.L. examination are men who have passed through the University course and for the most part, like the students at Harvard, are about to become lawyers. The B.C.L. examination, owing to the labours of my friends Mr. Bryce and Professor Holland, is an admirable one. The men who read for it pursue a course of study as well planned for laying the foundation of sound legal knowledge as can be recommended to a student earnestly bent on mastering the principles of law. The one defect, as far as the University is concerned, of the aspirants for a B.C.L. degree is that from the necessity for reading in chambers they rarely stay in Oxford, and thus do not provide, as they would otherwise do, a class of men to whom could be given serious post-graduate instruction. Every teacher of law at the University should therefore carefully consider how best to induce men reading for the B.C.L. degree to continue their studies, at any rate for a year, at the University. We may, it is to be hoped, at any rate when a legal University is founded in London, make good the claim, to the recognition of which we have already a reasonable and a moral right, that the holder of a B.C.L. degree should be exempted from the need of going through any examination as a condition for entering the profession of the law. This result we cannot, however, obtain by our own efforts: the more immediate question for the University is whether persons who have received a liberal education elsewhere, and many of whom would highly value the degree of B.C.L. of Oxford, may not by slight alterations in our arrangements be induced to reside and study at Oxford. This, however, is not the occasion for discussing details. All that can certainly be asserted is that the University and its teachers ought to do everything possible to foster study for the B.C.L. degree, and thus create, if possible, the serious study of law at Oxford by persons who have passed through their University curriculum.

The best result, however, of the experience of Harvard is that, to every person engaged in the earnest teaching of the law in England, this experience gives immense encouragement. We learn from it that, under favourable circumstances, English law can be taught with unlimited success by the professors and teachers of a University. Nor, when the matter is fairly considered, is there any real ground for being disheartened by the fact that the numbers of our law students are fewer and the success of the Law School less than at Harvard. As I have insisted, the conditions under which law is taught in England and in the United States are different; and we are all of us too apt to forget how very recent has been the revival of the active study of law at our English seats of learning. By a curious paradox,

it is of older date in the United States than in England. On the other side of the Atlantic the revival dates back at least from the days of Story. The condition of things there is much what it might now have been with us had Blackstone been followed by a line of successors as eminent and as zealous as the Commentator. Even as it is, the change produced within little more than thirty years is great. Within about that period the teaching of law both at Oxford and at Cambridge has become a reality, and is now an important part of University life. The energy of its teachers has been turned, and most wisely turned, towards the improvement of institutional works. The monumental "History of English Law," commenced by Pollock and Maitland; Digby's "History of the Law of Real Property"; Holland's Jurisprudence"; Moyle's edition of the "Institutes "books the merit whereof is acknowledged not only in England, but throughout the length and breadth of the United States-are signs of the movement which is making law a part of English literature. This shows the spirit of the time. The annals of Harvard conclusively attest the influence of such a spirit. A Law School in England can never be a copy of a Law School in America; but there is no reason whatever why serious students of law at Oxford should not, like the best students at Harvard, attain what is the true end of legal education, and be taught to "live in an atmosphere of legal thought."

66

A. V. DICEY.

THE EMPLOYMENT OF VOLUNTEERS

ABROAD.

EVE

(To the Editor of the CONTEMPORAry Review.)

IVER since the offer of a complete company of selected men from the London Scottish Volunteers for service in South Africa was transmitted by me to the Secretary of State for War in July last, a flood of correspondence has filled the military, and even the daily papers on the subject. Most of this has been based on ignorance of fact, and much of it has been the expression of intemperate prejudice. Standing almost alone in an impartial attitude, the writer who signs himself" Miles" in the October number of the CONTEMPORARY REVIEW has presented both sides of the question to the public. May I venture shortly to supplement his remarks from my own point of view?

The object which the country has in paying for the Volunteer force is Home Defence. And it is a self-evident fact that the more efficient each unit is, the better value is the country receiving for its annual outlay. We frequently hear of the inequality in the efficiency of different units of Volunteers, as well as of the inequality in the efficiency of the individuals composing those units inequalities very much greater than any which exist in the regular army. Inequality is, I fear, an evil inseparable from the volunteer system. At the same time it is fair to look upon it in another light. Under the constitution of the force all that the public pays for, and all that it therefore has a right to expect, is the Parliamentary standard of efficiency. In the majority of cases it gets more than this, in many cases a hundred-fold more. This is "Corban" by which the nation profits.

Now, the process by which a commanding officer attempts to raise the standard of efficiency in his corps is not merely to put pressure on the laggards, but to avail himself of every opportunity of satisfying the aspirations of the keenest members. It is the policy

of leavening the lump." It is astonishing how, even in ordinary times, the existence of such a leaven will raise the whole. And, if ever the Volunteers were called out for home defence, the presence of

a quite small proportion of men accustomed to the rigid routine of duty, accustomed to the systematic performance of work in the field, and with an actual experience of such duties, would, in the two months available for training under military law, go far to make each corps a reliable campaigning unit.

The military authorities have so far recognised this principle that they have encouraged small units of volunteers (companies and sections) to undergo training with regular battalions for weeks together. But how much greater would be the gain to the nation if these small units could receive experience of actual war! I do not, and never have, maintained that, even in such a corps as the London Scottish, with all its physical and intellectual advantages, a company would at first be nearly as valuable as a company of regulars. If their services were accepted, it would be with the object of benefiting them directly and their regiment indirectly. The country would be paying for the military education, just as it pays when they are attached to regulars in peace time. Selected men, as they would be, they would be trustworthy fighting men no doubt. But, unless the war were of such magnitude that the regulars and embodied militia were insufficient to wage it, it would be through benefiting the whole volunteer force that the country would gain directly by their employment abroad.

I fully understand and appreciate the feelings of those regular officers who saw in this offer of service a diminished chance of their own employment. They are to some extent justified in their assumption. I agree that it would be unfair on them if their success in their life's career were in any way imperilled. But if the country thought it worth while, for the sake of the volunteer force, to spend additional money to add to the fighting army a few hundred men and ten or twelve officers, no hardship would arise in the commissioned ranks. But if the country is not prepared for this additional expenditure, slight as it is, a way out of the difficulty might be found by accepting the specially enlisted services of non-commissioned officers and men only. As these would replace reservists no additional cost would be incurred. The result, however, would be not nearly so satisfactory, as the opportunity would be lost of improving the volunteer force when it most wants improvement, and no experience would be gained of company organisation.

Of the indirect advantages some have been clearly put forward by "Miles." To these I might add, the cementing of a closer union between regulars and volunteers; the breaking down of the prejudice against soldiering among the classes from which recruits should be drawn; the furtherance of the cause of imperial unity, and the destruction of the foreign view that we are merely a nation of shopkeepers.

EUSTACE BALFOUR,

Lt. Col. London Scottish V.R.C.