The Sun.
London, England, 1841-01-29 00:00:00

MORNING EDITION.

DUBLIN LAW INSTITUTE.
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(Abridged from Sauniers
On Thursday last Thomas Wyse, EsizrgPcilair.:.-.1:`;T,;21,
man of the Select Committee on Educe(' -1' " -' ' .p.t:lr'ot. -'-'
,a
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the Lords of the Treasury, was entertai _ ' ,'er:
the Prin.:ipal and Professors of the llublirt -
at their Hall, Queen's Inn Chambers, in ac
s
-;„
of the services rendered by their distinguis Ve,,fin4.Y..iiktioliq
man in the advaneemeot of science, ani the support of the
objects for which this institution was founded. The guests
were about 50 in namber, amongst whom were his Grace
the Archbishop of Dublin, the Master of the Rolls,
the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, the Right
Hon. Arthur Moore, Sir Philip Crampton, Bart., Sir
Henry Marsh, Bart., Sergeant Stock, Master Curry,
the Second Reinembrancer, Mr. Commissioner Macao,
Rabert Holmes, Esq., W. E. Hudson, Esq. ; Messrs.
Gilmore, Major, Dickson, Brook, Hickson, Queen's
Counsel ; Professor I.ll'Cullagh, Captain Larcome,
Captain Kennedy, Surgeon Carmichael, several mem-
bers of the Bar, and other Fellows of the Society of
the Institute.

At se eioeltn
uoorp' ck l.ous ctnrkde
under
rht
,e t
hp:a,
whose
otsysueps
eafrtai
nndltoeewnesdi
teantncodesaosumptuous
grerailmas,t,ogf
high. The wiacs were of the rarest vintages, and the
champagne and claret secured the most marked and
genTeiriael
cariapirrobwaatsion.
occupied
by the Principal, Tristram
Kennedy, Esq., supported by Professors Napier, Hard-
ing, Molyneux, and Whiteside.
After the usual toasts of the Queen, Prince Albert,
the Princess Royal, &c , " the health of Mr. Wys:"
was proposed, and received with cheers.
Mr. Wiese then rose and said that he found the or-
dinary language of acknowledgment very inadequate
indeed to the expression of his thanks for the high, lie
might add, the most unusual and especial honour
which had just been (lone him. He had not the advan-
tage to belong to their learned profession, though des-
tined for it in early life—he was not of them, though
cordially and earnestly with them is all their ho-
nourable pursuits ; to many he was only known
as a public man, recommended on'y by his
public exertions in aid and advancement of ob-
jects dear, he well knew, to them both ; and yet
this evening he found himself surrounded by the
highest names on the bench and at the bar—by the
elite of the sister professions—by men whose lives were
ihe glory of their country and fame, the common pro-
perty cf all that was eminent for character and talent
throughout the land. We all Mt proud of being their
compatriots ; they were our boast in other countries ;
to receive the sanction, the approbation, the thanks
of such men as these was a reward and a triumph
indeed. l'o no other unprofessional man had such
a testimony, he believed, been vouchsafed ; it was un-
exampled, unattemptcd—as singular as it was great.
Nor was this the only cause of gratification ; the ground
on which this dinner was given by him was one, of
all others, he felt the most honourable. It was not the
tribute of pars:emus to a partisan ; not even the cele-
bration of ore friendshias, or the pledge of new ; so far
from this being the case, it had not one element, not
one eenttement of a political or sectarian nature.
We were of various creeds, of various politics,
though in this instance of one party. Protestant
rend Catholic, Conservative and Liberal, Whig and
Tory, had come together as one body and spirit, to
testify their unanimous and deep interest in an
object not only common to all, but he might
add, paramount to every otl er welch could
engage the consideration of thinking and honest men
—the intellectual and moral advancement of their coun-
try. 'Io participate in such a scene—to be in any
way linked with it was a high gratification ; but to be
thus placed by their partiality in the front of it was beyond
his (Mr. Wyse's) acknowledgments. He had no other
claims on their kindness than the deepest sense of the
importance of National Education generally, but es-
pecially of those higher and leading branches which di-
rected or influenced others—than a strong desire to see
perfected co that amplitude and power of which he be-
lieved it, susceptible, but which he should be pardoned
for ihi.nking it had not }et attained, the highly influen-
tial profession of the bar, than a not less strong convic-
tion diet, amongst the means most indispensable to
thieve such an end, early, wel I-ordered, well-digested
legal education, under qualified teachers, in well-
constituted arid welhnianaged institutions, was amongst
the first ; and that from what he knew both of the
plan and the practice of the institution, in the
midst of which he then had the honour of standing,
he believed the Law Institute fully calculated to fu'fil
these conditions, and destined to raise the legal charac-
ter of Ireland, high as it might be, to an eminence
which it has not yet attained. As a branch, then, most
important in that great system of general education, for
all branches of which, in turn, he had endeavoured
with feeble means, but he hoped not wholly fruitless
results, to lahaur, ever since he had entered public
life, he had for many a year, even previously
to the suggestion in the report on education, most
anxiously sought the establishment of a Law
School for Ireland. He gave, not cheerfully only,
but earnestly, cordially, and he would also say persever-
ingly, his aid, his efforts at least, whatever they might
be, to the promotion of this important object.—( After
some further observations on the same topics, the Ho-
nourable Gentleman contiriued)—Even the best amongst
you, be his walk in after life whatever it may, must have
felt sensible how much of labour, of time, of thought,
might have been spared, had he bad good finger-
posts to direct him in his outset. How many have
toiled through the swamps and morasses—through
the brushwood and jungles of useless reading—for
years, and not discovered till after much waste of time
and exertion they had reached circuitously their destina-
tion, that there was a short, clear, and direct route to
the same point which would have been an economy of
all most valuable, to give it no other name, had they
known it in time. Not only is it well to learn
what we ought to know, but what we can afford not
to know, and kna.v what we ought not to know.
Nor are the public interests less to he considered ;
they have a right to be protected against quackeries of
all kinds, as far as positive institutions can protect
them, in whatever profession it may be. Are there none
in the legal, as well as in others ; no empiricism, no
experimenters on the public as in coTore viii; no livers
on the petty tricks of the day ; no
i feeders on the cre-
dulity of mankind ; no traffickers n unblushing impu-
dence and insolent pretension ; no audacious ignorance
I and confident blindness coming into unmerited wealth
on the follies and confidence of the community ?
From much of this the public might undoubt-
edly be screened ; and if from any portion,
however small, it is surely worth the while of those
who have the guardianship of the public interest
at heart to look to it. The Law Institute pro-
poses in a great degree to effect this ; it is the
first attempt of the kind in the empire ; it is the
most adapted to cur institutions ; for the short time it
has been tried, it Iris proved eminently successful. The
nature of our University organizetion presenting
one body, analogous to the single philosophical faculty
of foreign universities, renders such an appendage
especially requisite. In other countries jurisprudence
has a philosophy—is a science ,it occupies in all colle-
giate institutions the rank next to theology. Why only
in this country—of all others interested in its progress
and elevation—why should it be so long a mere art ?
In too many cases a disjointed, and to the less welching,
an apparently heterogeneous mass of Opinions, of prece-
dents contradicting precedents, of authorities, of techni-
calities. A law school in its true vocation should seek to
systematize and philosophize—to elevate the art into a
science, and this is the aim and end of the Law Institute.
It should seek to bring the law more into contact with
other sciences—to breathe their spirit into it, at the
same time that it never forgets its original and charac-
teristic form and purpose. A lawyer is ever a better
lawyer for being something more than a lawyer.
the more objects of comparison, the juster his conclu-
sions, the wider his experience. The philosophic
lawyer has a principle for all his practice. The
teelaical lawyer often errs, even in his most tom-
, man practice, because he is always without a prin-
cple ; nor would the law only gain by such
.a school
ant the influences which sooner or later it would
infallibly generate. From these slight beginnings,
in sevoonusltdituptrieocneaeld
laegseisiol of
liaotion lipillo-
ot
that the unity and simplicity of the present plan
should be disturbed by such adjuncts, but that from
your such studies and institutions
suited
would gradually
exampleto such taste
taste for
Light windly experience have supplied
tsb(h)eoteutlisrye:aaii iintir:tdi c'E'rio%esia,..i ''lkiiinets:o;,,,
itaelrricel
gr ee r:
ol!
etac t
nilbeeoefnfi rtsilte those assembly,m soals f: sesound
ordinaryas
professional description ; hut the under machinery of
the department evinced how much injury, how many
impediments arc thrown in the way by incompetent,
ill-adapted, ill-acquired previous education. Our
eacisal bsclGroeorlins,anand France,
drafted from their but sent to ire-
diplomatists are not,sp
• proviso their functions often from a course of life
and study the most opposite to such objects. Our
administrators arc not better ; indeed worse. Our ad-
ministrative organization itself requires general re-
view, if trot reform. It is the aggregate of successive
departments, accidents of accidents, thrown up as
the necessity of the moment requires, uniting func-
tions and duties often the must opposite. The
officers of these departments, especially in the lower
grades, have been chosen generally without examina-
tion, certainly without any special course of stndy. It is
only wittein this last year that, in one department espe-
cially, . ,
such improvement, and with great success, has
been introduced. Yet in all the countries of the Con-
' tinent edmaristraf on has born as much a profession
and a science as that of the law or medicine ; the
man is adapted to his work ; the instrument to its end,
and the work is done better, and in the end more truly
and surely accomplished. But if no other profession is
in more need of such aids than that of the Legislature,
how small a portion of the historical, political, econo-
mical, and legal studies, which one would think ought
1 to home formed the indispensable elements of a legis-
lator's education, arc now touched on in the instruct