THOUGHTS ON . . . . . . . . . BOMBAY PRESIDENCY 15
provisions of the different Acts. But it is doubtful whether the system of mere lecturing affords a sufficient training of the student’s mind so as to enable him to apply legal principles to the complicated series of facts which arise in practice. There is also nothing in the system which can compel the student to follow up the lectures by reading the text-books prescribed with the result that student reads nothing till a few days before the date of the examination, when in order to work out the huge arrears he resorts to the notes and the cram books.
There are different views as to the proper method of giving instruction in Law. Some prefer the case method; others prefer the text-book method, supplemented by lectures. No one can dogmatise as to which of the two is the correct method. Methods of instruction must, of course, be left generally to the discretion of the individual members of the Teaching Staff. But, I believe that some positive direction is necessary to the teaching staff to being to its notice the fact that the present system is faulty and that it is necessary to introduce some change in the method, which will demand a larger share of intellectual effort from the student and which will, while instructing him, also train him. I am of opinion that instead of mere lecture there should be a combination of lecturing work and tutorial work; unless the tutorial method is used to supplement the method of lecturing, there is not much hope of the new college producing a new and a better class of lawyers.
The reform in the system of legal Education should in my view be accompanied by reforms in three other directions :–
(1) All the different Examination in Law should be abolished and should be replaced by one Examination common to all practitioners and the distinction between Advocate (A.S.) and Advocate (O.S.) in so far as it is founded in difference in Examination should be done away with. If the distinction is to be retained, it should be founded on the choice of the practitioner who should be called upon to make his decision at the time he applies for the Sanad whether he would practise as an Advocate (A.S.) or as an Advocate (O.S.) or as a Solicitor.