12 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
as a post-graduate study. Nonetheless in my view to adopt this suggestion would be a mistake and for two reasons. Experience has shown that a B. A. is not good enough. With this experience behind us, it seems to me somewhat odd to think that if we descend to the lower and inferior strata of the Intermediate, we could turn out a more finished product from the Law College than we do now when we draw our raw material from the higher and better strata of the B.A. If B.A. is not good enough, I cannot understand how it can possibly be maintained that the Intermediate would be better. Secondly, why leave the boy even though it be for two years in the hands of an Arts College which does not give him the preliminary training necessary for Law. If the boy is deficient in his preliminary training, why not take him in your own hands from the very commencement and give him the training? Why send him for two years to an Arts College which does not profess to give a course of instruction designed for the ultimate benefit of a lawyer ?
I see three distinct advantages in my proposal of allowing a student to commence the study of law immediately after the Matriculation :
- The first advantage to which I attach the greatest value is this. At present, a student who joins the Law Course has not the fixed objective of studying law for the purpose of qualifying himself for the profession. He comes there merely for the purpose of adding one more string to his bow. It is his last refuge to which he may or may not go for shelter. Probably, he comes to the Law College because he is unemployed and does not know for the moment what to do. Due to this unsteadiness in purpose, there is no seriousness in the Law student and that is why his study of Law is so haphazard. It is, therefore, necessary to compel him to stick to it. A boy, who is a B.A., cannot have this fixity of purpose, because as a B.A. he has other opportunities in life open to him. My scheme has the advantage of compelling the boy to make his choice at the earliest