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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 4, No. 9. July 30, 1941
Recommendations
Recommendations.
If lawyers are to retain their prestige in the community, there will have to be a great change in the quality of their knowledge, and a greater change in the teaching of law. The lecture system cannot provide adequate instruction, particularly in the principles of the Common Law. Few people carry away from a lecture in an unfamiliar subject more than a few vague impressions which the passage of time will completely obliterate, and which even the most furious note taking cannot properly revive. The only satisfactory method of learning and understanding legal principles is by individual effort; when a student has investigated a branch of law for himself it is [unclear: rarely] forgotten. There are two ways of applying this axiom.
| 1. | The case system, as adopted in leading American Law schools. Instead of carefully tabulated notes or text books, students are given [unclear: large] numbers of decided cases to read, and (with appropriate correction) deduce for themselves [unclear: the] principles governing the particular branch of the subject under study. |
| 2. | The Oxford Tutorial System, consisting of lectures, but with a maximum of essays involving individual research, discussion by small groups on given topics, and moots involving argument on selected facts. |
It appears that the most readily adaptable method for New Zealand conditions would be a compromise between these two. Law students at Victoria are fortunate in having a teaching staff which is widely awake to the need for improvement and to the methods by which it can be best achieved, but there are two obstacles to an immediate change.