Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- ENLIGHTENED LEGAL EDUCATION
- THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GLASGOW LAW SCHOOL
- 5 The Origins of the Glasgow Law School: The Professors of Civil Law, 1714–1761
- 6 William Crosse, Regius Professor of Civil Law in the University of Glasgow, 1746–1749: A Failure of Enlightened Patronage
- 7 “Famous as a School for Law as Edinburgh … for Medicine”: Legal Education in Glasgow, 1761–1801
- 8 John Millar, Ivan Andreyevich Tret'yakov, and Semyon Efimovich Desnitsky: A Legal Education in Scotland, 1761–1767
- 9 From “Speculative” to “Practical” Legal Education: The Decline of the Glasgow Law School, 1801–1830
- ENLIGHTENED CRITIQUE: CRIME, COURTS, AND SLAVERY
- CRITIQUES: LITERATURE AND LEGAL HISTORY
- Index
9 - From “Speculative” to “Practical” Legal Education: The Decline of the Glasgow Law School, 1801–1830
from THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GLASGOW LAW SCHOOL
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 October 2017
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- ENLIGHTENED LEGAL EDUCATION
- THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GLASGOW LAW SCHOOL
- 5 The Origins of the Glasgow Law School: The Professors of Civil Law, 1714–1761
- 6 William Crosse, Regius Professor of Civil Law in the University of Glasgow, 1746–1749: A Failure of Enlightened Patronage
- 7 “Famous as a School for Law as Edinburgh … for Medicine”: Legal Education in Glasgow, 1761–1801
- 8 John Millar, Ivan Andreyevich Tret'yakov, and Semyon Efimovich Desnitsky: A Legal Education in Scotland, 1761–1767
- 9 From “Speculative” to “Practical” Legal Education: The Decline of the Glasgow Law School, 1801–1830
- ENLIGHTENED CRITIQUE: CRIME, COURTS, AND SLAVERY
- CRITIQUES: LITERATURE AND LEGAL HISTORY
- Index
Summary
A Royal Commission for Visiting the Universities and Colleges in Scotland was appointed on 23 July 1826. Its members were: the Duke of Gordon; the Duke of Montrose; the Marquis of Huntly; the Earl of Aberdeen; the Earl of Rosebery; the Earl of Mansfield; Viscount Melville; Lord Binning; Lord President Hope; Sir William Rae, Lord Advocate; Lord Justice- Clerk Boyle; Chief Baron Sir Samuel Shepherd; William Adam, Chief Commissioner of the Jury Court; John Hope, Solicitor General; George Cranstoun, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates; Dr Taylor, Moderator of the General Assembly; and Dr Cook, former Moderator. A supplementary commission of 28 September added to this list the Earl of Lauderdale, Sir Walter Scott, the Rev Dr Lee, Henry Home Drummond, advocate, and James Moncrieff, advocate. This was a distinguished body of the great and the good of early- nineteenth-century Scotland. Of these, Lauderdale, Rae, Boyle, Adam, Cranstoun and Moncrieff had studied at Glasgow under John Millar, who there had held the Regius chair of Civil Law from 1761 to 1801.
A special sub-commission that included five of Millar's pupils visited the University of Glasgow, and on 9 January 1827 took evidence from Robert Davidson, Millar's successor. What these Commissioners discovered at their alma mater cannot have pleased them. When the report of the Royal Commission was published in 1831 it resolutely stated: “It is perhaps scarcely necessary to observe, that it is only in the University of Edinburgh that a full course of instruction in the Science of Law can with propriety be established; at least in the present circumstances of the country.” The report stressed that law ought to “be studied as a liberal and enlightened science”, so that students did not “enter on practice at the Bar without any acquaintance with the general principles of Jurisprudence, and with limited and contracted views of the subject of their profession”.
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- Enlightenment, Legal Education, and CritiqueSelected Essays on the History of Scots Law, Volume 2, pp. 238 - 268Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2015