Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/271



though, the general scheme was adopted so long ago as in April 1890, still some details had to be worked out before it could be brought into operation. These were referred again to a Committee, which has during the past year settled the details so far as the Previous Examination is concerned. The detailed scheme for the Previous Examination has been approved by the Government and is now in force; so that the first Previous Examination according to the new scheme will be held in the current year, and the students preparing for it will have the full advantage of the new four years' course of study—a result on which the University and the affiliated colleges and all interested in the progress of the country may rightly be congratulated. The new scheme for the Law Course was also devised in 1888 by a most competent Committee appointed by the Faculty of Law, and was finally adopted by the Senate in 1889. It came into practical operation from November last. Its main feature is that it insists on a properly graduated course of study extending over three years, two of which are to be undergone after the law student has taken the intermediate degree or B.A. or B.Sc. His progress is to be tested by two examinations, and provision is also made for an examination in Honours. Closely connected with the reform of the Law Course is the reform of the Law School. Indeed, the Committee which proposed the new scheme for the Law Course made proposals also for putting the Government Law School on a proper footing. Effect has not yet been given to these proposals, and we are not informed as to the cause of the delay. As the Government receives fees from the scholars who attend the lectures of the law professors, and as the maintenance of the professorships cannot, therefore, impose any serious burden on the taxpayer, a circumstance which was made very clear in the Committee's report, it is greatly to be desired that this question may be dealt with soon by the Government. A satisfactory solution of the question might perhaps be arrived at by the transfer of the management of the school to the University. The matter is one which affects not merely the education of our law students, but the interest of the people of the whole Presidency. It is from the ranks of our successful law students that the ranks of our Judicial Service are largely recruited. I had occasion lately, in this place, when speaking of the influence exercised by Dr.Wordsworth on pupils who afterwards rose to positions of trust and influence in remote towns and districts, to bear testimony to the wonderful improvement which was noticeable in the whole