.jpg)
Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 4, No. 9. July 30, 1941
• We, the Students •
• We, the Students •
V.U.C. is the Law School of the University of New Zealand. "Salient" is proud to feature a scheme for the reform of legal education.
"Let us talk of jurisprudence as a science of social engineering. Engineering. is a process, an activity, not merely a body of knowledge or a fixed order of construction."
The conservatism of the legal profession has been one of its most useful characteristics in the past, but if it prevents a realisation of the true aims of law it may well be a handicap in the future. Law will become a mere trade—somewhat skilled, no doubt, but a trade nevertheless.
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.
Obstacles.
The first is that more time for study is a Prerequisite. Most law student's work in offices during the day, and it is this factor which has shaped the lecture system in the past. At least six hours a week would have to be taken from working time. There is every reason to suppose that in normal conditions the profession as a whole would view such a request with tolerance, if not benignity, but with the shortage of law clerks caused by the war it would be perhaps too much to ask of employers at the present time.
The second obstacle is the examination system. The adoption of a new method of tuition in any one College might well place its students at a disadvantage with an outside examiner who demands the type of canned law taught elsewhere. Considerable progress has been made in overcoming this, and individual professors now have a fair degree of control over the field and marking of papers for external examinations.
Ducat Victoria.
In conclusion, there is every prospect of a better system of legal education on the future, though to some extent it must be temporarily shelved.
Consciousness of the need for improvement among law students as a body and the co-operation and goodwill of the profession must be secured. Time spent in discussion of [unclear: s] and means will not be wasted. The lead must come from Victoria.
Lex.
Faculty
"The Arts have no real enemies except the ignorant."
We feel that University teaching if it is to teach us How to think rather than what to think, could be improved by reducing lectures to a minimum and by making greater use of seminars where discussion could oust feverish note-taking. (This system is already working well in the advanced stages of the History Department and in Diploma of Education classes.)
Seminars instead of lecturers would necessarily involve a larger teaching staff. As it is unlikely that the Government would be willing to pay the salaries of a dozen extra full-time lecturers, we suggest that greater use could be made of student lectureships. Each Department in the Faculty of Arts could have attached to it at least two student lecturers in whom enthusiasm might compensate for lack of experience. (Incidentally this would improve pre-University education as it would give the advanced students—the future teachers—opportunity to clarify their ideas and to become factually more competent.)
As a further improvement we suggest a focusing point for the Arts courses as a whole—a free and optional course in Art.
History and Art.
This course in Art could follow mainly along the lines of the History syllabus and would aim, not merely to be a history of Art, but to interpret and be interpreted by history. The student of any literature would find his understanding quickened by a knowledge of contemporary movements in Art. Such an Art course would have the additional advantage of bringing to one focus a number of facts hitherto scattered through a number of courses, and by consequence but partially known.
A similar union has worked well with Greek, History, Art and Literature, it should function with the whole Arts Course.
It is ridiculous to attempt to understand the literature of any country without knowing its contemporary history—it is equally foolish to divorce History from the Arts; but under the pressure of nine units and a compulsory language we do both.
English
In the midst of all the crying in the wilderness for faculty and departmental reform, news of the proposed new syllabus in English comes as an encouraging relief. All four stages have been overhauled and the changes come into effect next year.
The Stage I. course will now be much more suitable for students taking English for only one year, and instead of concentrating on one particular period will include a general survey of English literature and place emphasis on style and the encouraging of intelligent criticism. Students proceeding to the advanced stages will be allowed to specialise in the set periods.
Specialisation.
As far as advanced classes are concerned, the most noteworthy feature is that long-needed reform—the reduction by about one-half of the excessive amount of Anglo-Saxon studied at Stage II. A choice is allowed at Stage III. of either a predominantly literary or linguistic course, to replace the present syllabus, only one third of which is literary. Under the new scheme a student may take honours in two language and five literary papers (instead of four language and free literary) to permit specialisation, an essential concession at the Honours stage.
And after long years, they're going. Yes, Those "set books" which always seemed suspended in a [unclear: vacuum]. They were never related to the rest of literature studies in class, and the emphasis placed on them was seldom justified. Instead they will be replaced by classical critical works related to the period of literature being studied.
These are far-reaching and enlightened reforms. The provision of a more general course at Stage I, the shifting of the emphasis from language to literature at the advanced stages, and the abolition of the old "set books" eliminate the main grievances against the old syllabus. We hope that the example of the English departments in the [unclear: four] colleges may serve as an example to the rest of the Arts faculty in need of reform to set its own house in order.
J.