Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 10.djvu/447

421 A MOVEMENT IN ENGLISH LEGAL EDUCATION 421 that it would be well that the Inns should co-operate and establish a joint system of education. For the first time in their history, as far as known, alarmed at the report, they appointed a joint com- mittee, which reported that the four Inns should act in concert " in the joint establishment and maintenance of a uniform system of legal education of students before admission to the bar." They also provided for a standing committee of eight benchers on legal education, and Sir Richard Bethel, afterwards Lord Chancellor Westbury, called the boldest judge who ever sat on the bench, was made its chairman. In 1855 the Inns of Court were investigated further by a Royal Commission, which reported rather in favor of their incorporation, a threat which seems always full of terrors for them. This pro- duced a great effect. The Inns appointed a committee, which sat four years, and finally adopted the suggestion of the Royal Com- mission and reported that it was expedient that there should be a compulsory examination of students previous to being called to the bar. In that year the Inns first made an examination for admis- sion to begin studying compulsory, requiring, as is still the rule, students to be examined in the English and Latin languages and English history; but not until fourteen years later would they adopt the recommendation of their own committee, that there be a compulsory examination for call to the bar. Finally, a legal education association was organized, July 6th, 1870, and Sir Roundel Palmer was made its first president. He and his allies sought for a great teaching faculty of law, whose instruction should be open to all who desired to know the law of the land, whether intending to become lawyers or not. The whole movement was brought on by an able paper from Mr. Jevons, of Liverpool, pointing out the shameful neglect of legal education in England, and this one man won the interest of Sir Roundel and a great number of the more enlightened law- yers. The plans were strongly opposed. A majority of the council of the Incorporated Law Society (the solicitors' organ- ization) hesitated to give their adherence to a scheme for edu- cation in law open to all alike, but a minority of the council gave the plan their warm support, and, appealing to the general meeting of the society, that body, after a debate of two days, by a majority of two to one, supported Sir Roundel's enlightened and liberal project. His association met with a committee of the Inns for conference, and they promptly disagreed. Thereupon, July 11, 56