THOUGHTS ON . . . . . . . . . BOMBAY PRESIDENCY 11
first question, namely, at what stage of his education, a student may be permitted to commence his study of law. I have no hesitation in saying that it should begin immediately after he passes his matriculation. I am driven to this conclusion by my inability to answer satisfactorily to myself the following two questions :–
(1) Why should the study of law be regarded as a postgraduate study.
(2) Does the undergraduate curriculum gone through by a boy in an Arts College gives him the training which is necessary as a preliminary for making him an efficient lawyer and the want of which has been a matter of constant complaint by the Examiners.
With regard to the first question, it may be pointed out that in the Bombay University no Degree in any Scientific subject, such as Engineering, Medicine, Chemistry and Physics is treated as a postgraduate Degree requiring the passing of the B.A. as a condition precedent for being admitted to the Degree Course. Why Law alone should be treated as an exception, I can see no good ground for justification. Secondly, what the boy studies during his four years in an Arts College for obtaining B.A. Degree. Ex-Hypothesis has been found as of no material benefit to him in the study of Law. It is the consideration of the matter from this point of view which has forced me, as I have said, to come to the conclusion that Law should not be treated as a post-graduate study but should be treated as a graduate study commencing right after the matriculation. There is nothing so inherently or particularly good in the present-day graduate course of the Bombay University which can be said to add to the make-up of a good lawyer as to compel us to hold that it must be a necessary prerequisite for the commencement of the study of Law. I may mention in passing that the Barrister’s course is not a post-graduate course.
There is a view that a student may be permitted to take to legal studies after the Intermediate. The suggestion is a good one in so far as it implies a return to the old system when law was not regarded