Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 05.pdf/36

 Legal Education in Modern Japan. LEGAL EDUCATION IN MODERN JAPAN. L BY PROFESSOR JOHN H. WIÜMORE. IT is a superstition of the home-keeping citizen that the ordinary traveller gains The rule prescribed for the Japanese a knowledge of the character and institu judges in the decision of cases is to con tions of the peoples he visits. Where the sider, first, the statute law, if any applies; journey has prolonged itself into a sojourn second, whatever custom may be brought to of a few years, the cup of the sojourner's their knowledge; and third, natural equity, — wisdom must be filled, and there is no ques that is, the notions of justice possessed by tion that may not be asked of him. But ex the judges. The importance which these perience speedily dissipates this superstition. three sources of law possess in legal educa We find that the mere dwelling in a place tion may be estimated by exactly reversing teaches very little. Knowledge of a coun the above order. For twenty years past a try's institutions is not absorbed through system of Codes, based on Western legisla the pores as one treads the streets of a tion, has been in preparation. A stimulus foreign land. Moreover, no nation is as was thus early given to the study of Western ready to tell about itself as is the American. law, and increasing attention has been paid Knock as vigorously as we may, the door of to it. Ever since the drafts of the Codes information is elsewhere not easily opened, were published, some two years ago, they and those who are bent on knowing must have been constantly studied; and the mate force the gate from its hinges. But one has rial of these Codes or their original sources not always the time to enter on the quest of now forms the substance of the judicial systematically informing himself. When I knowledge and of the instruction in the say that not a missionary in all Japan can schools. We must first notice briefly, then, furnish a fair account of the popular religion these Codes. The Codes of Crimes and Criminal Pro of the Japanese, that not an exporting-house cedure were made by M. G. Boissonade, an in Yokohama can explain the Japanese com mercial customs, and that not all the curio- eminent French jurist. M. Boissonade is dealers together know as much upon the sixty-nine years old, and until 1873 he was subject of keramics as a certain retired for twenty years an instructor in the Paris artillery officer of artistic tastes, then I shall Faculté de Droit. He still retains an honor perhaps be excused for professing to know ary connection with that college, but has for little about legal education in Japan, and the past twenty years been in the Japanese for any errors of statement that I may fall service as legal adviser to the Government into, in complying with the editorial request and instructor in the Imperial University. He has, I believe, been an Associate Editor for information on that subject. What I can offer is merely a few figures of the "Revue Historique du Droit." The and some impressions received from per Criminal Codes were begun by him in the year 1874, and completed in 1879. After sonal experience. That I may give some idea of legal educa passing through the hands of a Commission, tion in that country, it will be well to touch they went into force in January, 1881. The on these topics: (i) The law that is taught; Civil Code was begun by the same scholar (2) The organization of the schools; and (3) in 1879, finished in April, 1889, and promul gated in 1890, to take effect Jan. 1, 1893. The general features of the teaching. 3