Blackstone, William (1723-1780)

Commentaries on the Laws of England. Book the First.

Oxford

Clarendon Press

1765

"And in this I am warranted by the example of ancient Rome; where, as Cicero informs us, the very boys were obliged to learn the twelve tables by heart, as a carmen necessarium or indispensable lesson, to imprint on their tender minds an early knowledge of the laws and constitution of their country."

Without detracting, therefore, from the real merits which abound in the imperial law, I hope I may have leave to assert, that if an Englishman must be ignorant of either the one or the other, he had better be a stranger to the Roman than the English institutions. For I think it an undeniable position, that a competent knowledge of the laws of that society in which we live, is the proper accomplishment of every gentleman and scholar; an highly useful, I had almost said essential, part of liberal and polite education. And in this I am warranted by the example of ancient Rome; where, as Cicero informs us, the very boys were obliged to learn the twelve tables by heart, as a carmen necessarium or indispensable lesson, to imprint on their tender minds an early knowledge of the laws and constitution of their country.
(I.i, p. 6)

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Text from William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 2 vols. (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1893). <Link to OLL>

See also William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, vol i (1765; facs. ed Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979). <Link to ECCO>

05/19/2012