Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/42

26 leiure or reolution ufficient to enter upon a new cheme of tudy at a new place of intruction. Wherefore few gentlemen now reort to the inns of court, but uch for whom the knowlege of practice is abolutely neceary; uch, I mean, as are intended for the profeion: the ret of our gentry, (not to ay our nobility alo) having uually retired to their etates, or viited foreign kingdoms, or entered upon public life, without any intruction in the laws of the land; and indeed with hardly any opportunity of gaining intruction, unles it can be afforded them in thee eats of learning.

that thee are the proper places, for affording aitances of this kind to gentlemen of all tations and degrees, cannot (I think) with any colour of reaon be denied. For not one of the objections, which are made to the inns of court and chancery, and which I have jut enumerated, will hold with regard to the univerities. Gentlemen may here aociate with gentlemen of their own rank and degree. Nor are their conduct and tudies left entirely to their own dicretion; but regulated by a dicipline o wie and exact, yet o liberal, o enible and manly, that their conformity to it’s rules (which does at preent o much honour to our youth) is not more the effect of contraint, than of their own inclinations and choice. Neither need they apprehend too long an avocation hereby from their private concerns and amuements, or (what is a more noble object) the ervice of their friends and their country. This tudy will go hand in hand with their other puruits: it will obtruct none of them; it will ornament and ait them all.

if, upon the whole, there are any till wedded to monatic prejudice, that can entertain a doubt how far this tudy is properly and regularly academical, uch perons I am afraid either have not conidered the contitution and deign of an univerity, or ele think very meanly of it. It mut be a deplorable narrownes of mind, that would confine thee eats of intruction to the limited views of one or two learned profeions. To the praie of