sequences predicted as likely to follow from the admission of Nonconformists been actually experienced, for there has been a diminution of theological controversy, a growing sense of friendliness and sympathy among Christians, a more assured peace in the minds of our students.

The examination system has been remodelled, with a regrettable but perhaps inevitable increase of complexity, as well as enlarged by the inclusion of new studies. The University and the Colleges have been dealt with by Parliament and by an Executive Commission: and the serious consequent evils have been not wholly uncompensated by gains. Oxford has undertaken many new kinds of work. She provides University Examinations for Women, and sends zealous young lecturers everywhere through England to bring teaching of an academic type within the reach of the people.

As regards Law, while the degree of Doctor of Civil Law has become a true distinction by the requirement of a thesis of substantial merit instead of the former purely formal exercise, the B.C.L. examination (theretofore scarcely serious) was made by a statute of 1872 a reality: the standard both of honours and of the pass degree has steadily risen, and this rise has been accompanied by an increase of candidates. That examination is probably now, I do not say the most severe test of legal attainments, but the best arranged and most practically useful law examination in England. In the years preceding 1870 there were seldom more than two or three entrants for this examination, almost absurdly easy as it then was. There are now usually upwards of twenty and sometimes twenty-five. Similarly the number of candidates in the School of Jurisprudence, by which candidates can obtain the degree of B.A., has grown and the quality of the work has improved.

In 1868 there were only three Chairs in the Faculty of Law: those of Civil Law, Common Law, and International Law, besides the temporary Vinerian Readership; and of these that of Common Law was virtually in abeyance. In 1870 the work of the Corpus Professorship of Jurisprudence began with the lectures of an illustrious writer whose fame two Universi

ties dispute, for if Cambridge reared him, Oxford gave him the occasion for teaching, Sir Henry Maine. In 1878 the Readership in Indian Law, and in 1881 that in Roman Law, was founded and the opportunity taken of placing in it the zeal and learning of a German civilian-Dr. Erwin Grueber -whose lectures have proved most helpful. In 1882 the Vinerian Chair of Common Law became (as we trust it will ever continue) a working chair by the choice of another distinguished man whose powers, always admired by his friends, are now recognized over the English-speaking world, and to whom belongs the rare honour of having devoted those powers to the service of his political allies in a great and burning controversy without impairing the respect which all parties feel for the depth and soundness of his constitutional lore.

Thus there are now seven working professorships and to these we must add, in estimating the teaching force which the University possesses, the lectures of another distinguished writer who may be reckoned as virtually a law professor-the Warden of All Souls: and of more than ten College lecturers, who serve the University as well as their respective Colleges, with recognized efficiency.

Thus, upon a review of recent years, we may say that as the whole University has grown and expanded, so has also this side of her activity, and that which was once a dry river-bed, or presented, like a South African river, only a few scattered pools of stagnant water, has now become a wide and fertilizing stream.

That serious deficiencies exist I am well aware: I shall presently advert to them and to the steps that may be taken to remove them. For the moment, however, I am noting progress actually made and gains actually secured. Among these may be reckoned the assured position which the study of the Roman Law now enjoys.

Though this was the first subject recorded to have been taught in Oxford, for one of the earliest notices of the University is to be found in the sentence' Magister Vacarius in Oxenefordia legem (sc. Romanam) docuit,' and though from his time (the reign of King Stephen) down till the seven.

teenth century it held a rank second only to that of theology, it had within the last hundred years virtually died out of the University, and this chair, founded by King Henry VIII in 1546, and occupied in the time of King James I by Alberico Gentili, had become a sinecure. A few law degrees no doubt continued to be given, but they carried no evidence of knowledge. The revival begins with the substitution in 1852 of an examination (albeit a very slight one) for the old formal exercises for the degree of B.C.L., and the creation in 1853 of the Law and Modern History School (in which the Institutes of Justinian were made a subject of examination). That School was in 1872 divided into the present two Schools of › Modern History and of Law, in the latter of which Roman Law received a more important place. Till 1870, however, there was scarcely any teaching, and what little did exist in the colleges was confined to commenting upon the solitary book required for the examination. No one had lectured on the Digest; no one had treated the history of the subject. This was part of that remarkable isolation of England from the general current of European legal thought and practice which was due partly to the resistance to the encroachments of the Canon Law, first of the barons in the thirteenth century, and again of the Parliament under Richard II, partly to the great religious breach of the sixteenth century, an isolation once politically fortunate, for it helped to develop the free spirit of the common law, but in our days, when the old dangers have vanished, a circumstance to be regretted and removed. Among the modes of removing it, the study of the Civil Law is not the least important. That study may now be deemed to have struck here in Oxford deep and tenacious roots. Both in our examinations and in our teaching it holds a place equal in dignity to English Law, though doubtless of narrower compass. It attracts in fully as large a measure the interest of the more intelligent among our students, and it can hardly be doubted that the excellence of the Law School in the future will largely depend upon its maintenance as a main element in both teaching and examination.

Its practical utility to the English lawyer is one of the

points on which you may expect the results of my experience to be stated; for it is a point upon which attention must be constantly fixed, and I have had opportunities of studying it amid the din and dust of forensic practice in London no less than in the cloistered seclusion of Oxford.

In the Inaugural Lecture which I delivered here in 1871, an attempt was made to treat this subject. It was there pointed out that the utilities of the Civil Law to Englishmen might be reduced to three heads. One was its connexion with the main stream of the world's history from the time of Pyrrhus, the first formidable antagonist from non-Italian soil whom Rome overthrew, to that of Muhamad, by whose first successors the East was torn from her grasp; and its influence, less conspicuous, but still considerable, upon the growth of opinion and the development of institutions ever since. This is an aspect of the subject which, since it belongs rather to the historian than the lawyer, I shall not pursue further to-day, though subsequent reflection leads me to believe that its importance can hardly be overrated. The second utility was to be found in the fact that Roman Law is the substratum of some branches of English Law, directly of the law administered in the Probate and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice, and indirectly of a good deal administered in the Chancery Division, in the further fact that it is the actual law of some of our colonies from which appeals come to the Privy Council, as well as the foundation of the law of Scotland whence appeals come to the House of Lords, and in the command which it gives of the law of modern continental Europe, since it is the basis of the systems that prevail in all those countries, and its knowledge is a sort of master-key to each and every of them. These circumstances—so I then argued make it practically serviceable to the practitioner, and justify a man bent on professional success in devoting some time to its study. The third utility was to be found in its educational value, as forming the mind and training the aptitudes of the student devoting himself either to the theory or the practice of English Law. On these latter two of the above-mentioned three points it is proper to say a few words.

An observation extending over twenty-two years leads me to lay less weight than I laid in 1871 on the direct professional gain, in the way of securing practice at the bar, to be expected from a knowledge of Roman Law. Sometimes no doubt a man may find such knowledge directly helpful in writing opinions (especially if points of Scotch or French or German or Roman Dutch law arise), or in arguing before a Court. Once in addressing the House of Lords in a Scotch Appeal I discovered a pretext for quoting the Digest, which that august body received with grave approval, as not unbefitting the large survey they are wont to take of every matter that comes before them. But instances of this kind are rare in ordinary practice. It would be unbecoming to dilate upon this aspect of the question, for a University is the last place in which the worth of knowledge ought to be measured by its merely gainful utility, or where our studious youth ought to be led to set their hearts upon immediate practical success. Still, if one is asked to deal with the point upon a hard utilitarian basis, I cannot allege that the advantage to be expected from the possession of this acquirement does much more than counterbalance the impression which still prevails in the ' other branch of the profession,' that it is a little uncanny for a barrister to be known for anything except his knowledge of the English Law. Things might fall out differently for the young civilian to whom a judicious firm of solicitors vouchsafed a chance of getting into Canadian Appeal business or Admiralty business. But in such a world as the present, and more particularly at the bar, one cannot await chances or shape one's course with a view to them; one must seize those that come and float onwards with the tide. ambitious junior may desire to be employed in subtle questions of insurance or company law, but if briefs are offered him at the Old Bailey or even in the Divorce Court, he will probably deem it wise to accept them, and to wait till his position is assured before he begins to pick and choose among the business which clients send. In the long run, no doubt, a man who knows Roman Law will find many cases in which, when he has attained a front rank in the profession, he can

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