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he had originally registered, who certified that he had studied law for three years and recommended his admission to the bar. We must assume in charity that this certificate and recommendation was given without knowledge on the part of the attorney that the candidate had been refused a certificate from the authorities of the law school. The first and by far the most important duty of the bar examiners is to scrutinize the certificates that are presented to them. If they discharge that duty faithfully, by subjecting them to a rigid test, and if they reject at once all candidates who do not pro duce reliable evidence of general education and clear proof of having studied law for the requisite period, their work is more than half done, for they will have adopted a reasonably sure precaution against the ad mission of men who are not prepared. In Ohio the court itself examines the certifi cates and determines who shall be admitted to the examination. If the examiners could, in addition, assure themselves of the charac ter of the instruction in law, which the can didate has received, the importance of a bar examination . would be greatly reduced, if indeed it might not.be dispensed with; hu» since it is impracticable in many cases to assure oneself of the character of the stu dent's instruction by any certificate, the char acter and method of the bar examination must remain a matter of importance. Everyone realizes the difficulty of testing the qualifications of a candidate for admis sion to the bar by means of an examination which in a few hours must cover the entire field of law, but the difficulty can be greatly reduced if the questions are framed so as to circumvent the skill of the crammer and the art of the professional coach. In 1895 Lord Russell, Lord Chief Justice of England, in an address delivered at the opening of the course of lectures under the Council of Legal Education, gave two in stances which he had carefully verified, of
candidates who had passed the bar examina tions with the sole assistance of a coach, and he came reluctantly to the conclusion that the examinations held by the Council of Legal Education could be satisfactorily passed without any prolonged study and without any real learning, provided the can didate had the guidance for a comparatively short period of a skilled crammer. In both of the cases which he verified, the candidates were Oxford men. One had studied Roman law at the university, but being unable to pass on that subject there, took it up under the auspices of the Inns of Court. He went to a coach in the beginning of November, and after one month's coaching, passed a socalled "satisfactory" examination in all of the subjects of the curriculum including common law, equity and Roman law. The other candidate had not attended any lec tures upon law at the university. His first reading for the bar began in October. In December he passed his examination in Roman law. In the following April, he passed his examination in constitutional law and legal history. . He then began for the first time to read with a view to the examina tion in English law and equity, of which he had no previcius knowledge. He obtained the services of an intelligent coach and in June, after two months' coaching, passed the examination in English law and equity. The examination covered the elements of real and personal property, conveyancing, including settlements, leases and mortgages, contracts, torts, sale of goods, agency, trusts, principles of equity, administration of assets on death, partnership, criminal law, criminal procedure and civil procedure, and evi dence. Upon all of these subjects, the first candidate was able with the assis tance of a coach, to pass an examination after one month' s preparation, and the other, after two months' study. Of course neither of these candidates had mastered the law; neither had digested or understood the
