diligence of the tenant's creditors in prejudice of the master (Macvicar v. Butler, 5 B.S. 897. Mor. 6208). This decision shows the intimate connection in principle between steelbow and hypothec; for although it appears that the landlord claimed no hypothec in the ordinary sense, it seems to have been thought that in the last year of the tack, when steelbow fell to be restored, "it was to be considered as rent for which the master had an hypothec over all the goods on the farm." (Comp. Bell's Princ. 1264).

We have entered thus fully on the subject of steelbow, because it illustrates the state of society in which the landlord's hypothec took its shape, and because we cannot but hold it to have been itself one of the considerations which fixed the nature of that privilege. It must be granted by the most violent opponents of the existing law, that in times past hypothec was eminently beneficial, indeed indispensable to the well-being of the country. But it by

no means follows of course that it is so now, when the governing principle of contracts relating to agriculture has within a few generations been entirely changed. Mr. Mill points out, that in early states of society "all transactions and engagements are under the influence of fixed customs.

Rights thus originating (i. e. in custom), and not competition in any shape, determine, in a rude state of society, the share of the produce enjoyed by those who produce it. The relations, more especially, between the landowner and the cultivator, and the payments made by the latter to the former, are, in all states of society but the most modern, determined by the custom of the country. Never, until late times, have the conditions of the occupancy of land been (as a general rule) an affair of competition" (Mill's Political Economy, B. II., ch. iv., vol. i. p. 293). The question which has to be decided on the evidence laid before the late Royal Commission is, whether circumstances are so changed by this alteration of the governing principle of contracts for occupancy of land, or, in other words, by the increase of capital and civilization, as to require the abolition or modification of the law of landlord's hypothec, which was admittedly beneficial in a ruder age?

It would serve no good purpose to analyse minutely evidence which has been so fully before the public, much of which on both sides is unavoidably mere reiteration of the same arguments and opinions, and which has already been so ably, and upon the

whole, so fairly summed up in the report of the Commissioners. The result of its perusal is to confirm the opinion expressed in this journal (ante vol. viii. p. 395), before the commencement of the inquiry, that the law of handlord's hypothec, as it now exists, is decidedly injurious in its working. At the same time, however, we concur with the Commissioners in thinking that its repeal "would certainly be followed by alterations in the tenancy of land in Scotland," which would seriously affect the condition of the poorer tenantry in many parts of the country. How far any permanent injury would arise to the valuable class of small farmers, may be doubted; indeed it may be argued that they would in the long run reap as great benefit from a modification of the law as any. We think that the apprehension of danger on this side is exaggerated, just as the expectation of advantage to the larger farmers is exaggerated on the other side. We cannot help thinking that if the law were injurious to the tenant with. capital to the extent alleged, we should have found back-hand rent more rare in practice, and the hypothec and its evils lessened in range. Upon the whole, the powerful opposition which the proposal of a larger change would necessarily excite, and the darkness in which its consequences are involved, lead us to the conclusion that we should not for the present aim at more than the improvements suggested by the Commissioners. These are-1. Protection of all bona-fide sales of grain delivered and paid for. 2. The limitation of the landlord's right to sequestrate to a period of three months after each half-yearly portion of rent becomes due. 3. The registration of all sequestrations. They also propose to declare, that stock belonging to another, and taken in to be grazed or fed, shall only be liable to the amount of the consideration agreed to be paid to the tenant; and that no sequestration for the rent of an agricultural subject shall extend to household furniture or agricultural implements; or to imported manure, lime, tiles, or feeding-stuffs brought upon the ground, but not incorporated with the soil, consumed, or otherwise applied to the purposes for which they have been procured.

LAW STUDIES.

No. I. THE MORAL SCIENCES' TRIPOS EXAMINATION, AT

CAMBRIDGE.

PROBABLY the greatest defect in the education of the higher classes in this country, hitherto, has consisted in the absence of any proper connecting links between studies which are merely learned and abstract, and those which have reference to the business of life. Both have been conducted with energy and zeal. There has been no sparing of time, labour, or money on either. Both have been conducted successfully, too, in so far as success was possible whilst they were prosecuted apart. We have made good scholars, and mathematicians, and occasionally even metaphysicians; and we have made hard-headed practising lawyers, and hard-working committee-men, and secretaries of state. Nor has it been rare for the two characters to be combined in the same individual. We have had scholars and philosophers who were lawyers and statesmen and we have had statesmen and lawyers who were philosophers and scholars. Those who have attained to the highest eminence in either department have frequently excelled in both; and as regarded them, that the strength which they derived from the vigorous exercises in which they had engaged in the one sphere, served to guide and sustain their labours in the other, was no secret either to themselves or to the rest of the world. Every judgment which Lord Stowell pronounced in the Court of Admiralty, bore the plainest traces not of the knowledge only which he acquired, but of the habits of thought which he formed, during the days when he was a college tutor at Oxford. Had Lord Stair not been a professor of philosophy, it is scarcely probable that he would have been the author of the only really philosophical treatise on the municipal law of Scotland that adorns our legal literature. Burke and Pitt were statesmen and scholars. Sir George Lewis was a scholar and a statesman. Lord Macaulay and Mr. Gladstone alternately exhibit the one character and the other in more prominent relief; yet both are indissolubly entwined in all that either of them has written or said. Such instances as these might be greatly multiplied; but however numerous, they are still exceptional, and they

have depended on personal characteristics which developed themselves in later life, far more than on educational training.

In the case of the normal Englishman, his learned and practical life have been wholly apart; and in the vast majority of instances the one has terminated when the other began. Once a Bachelor or Master of Arts of a reputable University (unless he embraced a college life), the prestige of belonging to the class of persons who have received the highest instruction has satisfied his ambition; and he has applied himself to his professional studies, or to the practical duties which his position as a member of society imposed on him, as if his degree, and the academical studies which led to it, had no more bearing on the occupations of his life than his coat of arms. If the learned tastes which he has acquired should prove too strong to be separated from his personal character, he indulges them in his leisure hours, and keeps up his scholarly acquirements as mere accomplishments. In the discharge of his duties as a professional man, a citizen, or a man of the world, they afford him no more direct or conscious aid than the habit of sketching which he may have acquired during an autumn residence in Switzerland, or the taste for the sonatas of Beethoven and the symphonies of Mozart, which his wife's piano may have engendered. Nor is this by any means entirely the result of a trivial and commonplace mind. That those whose speculative faculties are of a high order will find their own way from the abstract dogmas of science to the concrete maxims by which practice is governed, from the experience of the past to the rules which are to guide the present, is unquestionable. We have mentioned instances of men who have done so; and such instances, more or less conspicuous, we may hope will recur. But such is not the common case. the vast majority, even of those who are capable of performing the journey, the way must be shown. If the seed so laboriously implanted during the first twenty years of their lives is really to sustain and enrich them with its fruits, the reaper's art must be taught them. The scattered and conflicting lessons of history must be gathered, harmonised, and built up for them into the sciences of politics and political economy; ethics must be exhibited as the basis of jurisprudence; even the abstracter processes of thought, through which they have been dragged as students of logic and metaphysics, must be exhibited in their bearings on the problems, possible and impossible, of human life and destiny.

Το

The defect which we have here indicated appears at last to have been discovered; and, what is more to the purpose, very effectual means adopted for supplying it, in one at least of the great English universities. We refer to the regulations for the moral sciences tripos, adopted by the Senate of the University of Cambridge in 1860. According to these regulations all students who shall pass with credit the examination in the subjects which we are about to enumerate, are entitled to admission to the degree of Bachelor of Arts; but it is provided, that with the exception of candidates for degrees jure natalium, no student be admitted to this examination who has not passed the examination in additional mathematical subjects of the previous examination. This condition being satisfied, all students, without farther reference to what have hitherto been regarded as the special studies of the university, may proceed to an examination, which is thus characterised—“The subjects for examination shall be considered to form two groups, the one embracing (1) Moral philosophy; (2) Mental philosophy; (3) Logic; the other group, (4) History, and political philosophy; (5) Political economy; (6) Jurisprudence. Eleven out of the twelve papers shall contain an equal number of questions from either group, and the twelfth paper shall contain questions in the history of philosophy. The questions shall be in part of a special kind, having reference to books on the subjects; and in part of a general kind, having reference to the subjects themselves. These latter questions may take the form of theses for essays. It shall be the duty of the Board to mark out lines of study in the several subjects before mentioned, and to publish a list of books in relation to which questions shall be set; modifying the same from time to time as occasion may require. If a candidate wish to confine his attention to two subjects, he shall not be thereby precluded from obtaining a place in the first class. Candidates who may be thought worthy of honours are to be arranged in each class in the order of merit."

This very extensive and complete examination extends over no less than six days, the hours of attendance being from 9 to 12 in the morning, and from 1 to 4 in the afternoon. Lists of authors and books are prescribed "for the purpose of marking the general course which the examination is to take in the several subjects." But though the Board recommends that in the examinations questions be proposed having reference to the books in these lists, it is provided that opportunity shall be given to the candidates to