Crane, B. A.

English

York University, Osgoode Hall Law School

Osgoode Hall Law JournalVolume 1, Number 1 (June 1958) Article 16Book Review: The University Teaching of theSocial Sciences: Law, by Charles EisenmannB. A. CraneFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/ohljBook ReviewThis Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Osgoode Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion inOsgoode Hall Law Journal by an authorized editor of Osgoode Digital Commons.Citation InformationCrane, B. A.. "Book Review: The University Teaching of the Social Sciences: Law, by Charles Eisenmann." Osgoode Hall Law Journal1.1 (1958) : 93-95.http://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/ohlj/vol1/iss1/16Book ReviewsThe University Teaching of the Social Sciences-Law. By CHARLESEISENMANN. With an introduction, by JOHN HAZARD. Paris:UNESCO. 1954. Pp. 100.The University Teaching of the Social Sciences-Criminology. ASymposium. Paris: UNESCO. 1957. Pp. 164.The University Teaching of the Social Sciences-Law and the com-panion volume on Criminology form part of a series of research studieson the teaching of the social sciences commissioned by UNESCOduring the past five years. The studies were based on reports receivedfrom a representative group of countries, including Austria, Belgium,France, Italy, Mexico, Turkey, The United Kingdom, the United Statesand Yugoslavia. The final reports embody the defects of all internationalsymposia: many authors each with their own point of view and oftenwith a national axe to grind. This result has been partially averted inthe report on law teaching which was drafted by one man, ProfessorCharles Eisenmann of the University of Paris. However, the study ofCriminology teaching includes the contributions of no less than thirteendifferent authors. While the purpose of UNESCO's research work isto assist under-developed countries, there is much information onpresent trends in legal education in the United Kingdom and in theUnited States in these two little books which should attract interestin all common law countries.The report on law teaching was sponsored jointly by UNESCOand the International Committee of Comparative Law, and was preparedfollowing an international conference on the teaching of law held atCambridge in July, 1952. The report is divided into two parts: thefirst, an analysis of the aims of law teaching; the second, a descriptionof the techniques used in various countries to carry out these aims.In the introduction, Professor John Hazard (of Columbia Univer-sity) affirms the need for an evaluation of the purposes of legaleducation:Law teachers have become increasingly critical of legal education, bothas to its aims and as to its methods. The dissatisfaction has been nearlyuniversal. It has not 'been limited to a single country or group of countries.It has engulfed both the faculties teaching civil law and those engaged inpreparing lawyers for the common law courts. It has included teacherswho believe that legal education should train solely for careers on theBench and at the Bar and those who conceive of legal education as prepara-tion for business and public affairs, as well as for the more specialized careerfor the jurist and advocate.It is not that there is one ideal method of teaching law and thatall countries should work to attain it; rather that each country has itsown educational system which can benefit from the ideas followed inother countries. Professor Hazard continues:It is not impossible that the increasing inter-change of law school teachersunder the numerous exchange programmes fostered since the war will speedthe process of study of other systems and the selection of the best from all.Already the Socratic method which has been characteristic of legal educationin the United States has found its way into some classrooms of the Law19581OSGOODE HALL LAW JOURNALFaculty of Paris. The tutorial system, long associated with the Englishresidential college, is being tried in modified form in some of the lawschools in the United States. While it seems unlikely and even not yetdesirable that a common aim and common teaching methods will developin law schools throughout the world, the wide variations of the Dast may-be reduced as a result of the expanded interchange of ideas.All law schools expect students to obtain a broad backgroundin non-legal subjects. The method of providing this training varieswidely from the integrated undergraduate curriculum preferred bycontinental universities to the professional law course in the UnitedStates, the curriculum of which is drawn up on the assumption thatstudents have received extensive non-legal training before entering thelaw school.The report indicates that inr the United States it is the rare lawschool indeed that provides any training in specifically non-legal sub-jects. In practice, the same is true in England where the universitystudy of law is "a full time law course". On the European continent,however, political economy and other disciplines form a regular partof the law school curriculum. One view as to how non-legal subjectsshould be presented is summarized in the following passage referring tolegal education in the United States:A short time ago, however, some of them (the law schools)-not very many,it must be admitted-accepted the view that the training of a good legalpractitioner itself required some expansion of the traditional limits ofstrictly technical or specialized teaching . . .Some schools have gone sofar as to say that law is the form in which all economic life is being, carriedon; that the overwhelming majority of legal problems are economic prob-lems. Those in charge of these schools 'have concluded that -their studentsshould be initiated in non-legal branches of learning, and have instituteda curriculum which includes political economy, sociology and psychology.It has been objected that these disciplines figure in the curricula of someat least of the colleges through which, the students pass before enteringthe law school. The schools in question, answer that while this may 1etrue on paper, in fact the students have no thorough knowledge of thesesubjects when they enter the law schools. The critics have countered thatit would be enough to make such subjects compulsory in all the colleges,and their study more thorough. To which the schools reply that theinter-relation of law with, these subjects is possible only when all are taughttogether rather than in separate institutions at chronologically different timesin the students' developments.The UNESCO study also includes an interesting description ofteaching methods in the United States and in the United Kingdom. Themerits of the "case" system of instruction as opposed to the "sys-tematic" method are considered, as well as such problems as studydiscipline, testing and examinations.The University Teaching of the Social Sciences-Criminology isthe most recent UNESCO study to appear in this series. Criminologyis taken to include the subjects of criminal biology, criminal psychology,criminal sociology, forensic medicine and judicial psychology.The recommendations of the International Society of Criminology,which was responsible for the drafting of this UNESCO study, empha-size that Criminology serves many disciplines, especially medicineand law.[VOL. IBook ReviewsGenerally speaking, and excepting Great Britain and the UnitedStates, criminology is included in the education of most law students,although it may actually be taught in another faculty of the university.International conferences on penal law have from time to time reportedon the value of the new social science and in December, 1952, theConference of Specialized Agencies and Non-Governmental Organiza-tions Interested in Crime Prevention made a recommendation to theUnited Nations that the teaching of criminology be made compulsoryfor all those intending to take up the law as a profession.One branch of criminology-forensic medicine, has been effectivelylinked with the study of law in the law faculties of many British andalmost all European universities.Although it is modestly described in the UNESCO report as "theleast distinct of the subsidiary sciences of criminology", judicial psy-chology is finding wide acceptance in the curricula of Europeanuniversities. Indeed the extent of the growth of the new science inAmerican universities is significant. Today "the teaching of criminologyis almost universally found in the curriculum of every sociology depart-ment in under-graduate liberal arts colleges". Of thirty leading uni-versities offering graduate training in the arts or sciences only fivedo not provide the teaching of criminology. Modern courses now dealwith such topics as the evolution of punishment, the treatment ofoffenders, probation and parole, crime and its causes, theories ofcriminal causation, organized crime and the professional criminal, lawenforcement and alcoholism and so on.Canadian law students will be interested to know that in manyschools in Great Britain and the United States the strictly professionallaw curriculum is being leavened by an occasional course in politicaleconomy or forensic medicine. Although the theoretical approach ofEuropean law schools has not been adopted in toto by any of the commonlaw institutions, it would appear that many schools feel that the studentshould study economics and psychology at the same time as he isreading law. And there can be little doubt that the work that is nowbeing done in some of the civil law countries in providing studentswith a knowledge of subjects like criminal psychology and forensicmedicine is having practical results of the most worthwhile kind.B.A. CRANE *Mr. Crane is a student in the first year at Osgoode Hall Law School.1958]

Book Review: The University Teaching of the Social Sciences: Law, by Charles Eisenmann

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Book Review: The University Teaching of the Social Sciences: Law, by Charles Eisenmann

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