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Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/441

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Law
421
Law

Educational Papers,’ 1882. 3. ‘Occasional Addresses on Educational Subjects,’ 1888. 4. ‘Language and Linguistic Method in the School,’ 1892; based on lectures at the College of Preceptors in 1890. 5. ‘Institutes of Education, comprising an Introduction to Rational Psychology,’ 1892. 6. ‘Teachers' Guild Addresses,’ 1892, a masterly compendium of educational doctrine on a philosophical basis. 7. ‘The Training of Teachers and Methods of Instruction,’ 1901 (chiefly reprints from earlier essays). On the history of education: 1. ‘The Life and Writings of John Amos Comenius,’ 1881. 2. ‘The Rise and Early Constitution of Universities, with a Survey of Mediæval Education,’ 1886. 3. ‘A Historical Survey of Pre-Christian Education,’ 1895. 4. ‘Studies in the History of Educational Opinion from the Renaissance,’ 1903.

[Private information; biography prefixed to M. Remacle's Philosophie de S. S. Laurie, which gives an impression of the breadth and attractiveness of Laurie's character (Paris and Brussels, 1909); Sir Ludovic Grant's address on presenting Professor Laurie for the LL.D. degree in University of Edinburgh; excerpts from minutes of the Senatus Academicus of the University of Edinburgh (5 June 1903) and of the Dick Bequest Trustees (11 July 1907); Address from Dick Bequest Schoolmasters (May 1908) and from Students of the Edinburgh University Class in Education (March 1903).]


LAW, DAVID (1831–1901), etcher and water-colour painter, son of John Law, was born in Edinburgh on 25 April 1831. Apprenticed at an early age to George Aikman, steel-engraver, he was in 1845, on his master's recommendation, admitted to the Trustees' academy, where he studied under Alexander Christie [q. v.] and Elmslie Dallas [q. v.] until 1850. On the termination of his apprenticeship he obtained an appointment as 'hill' engraver in the ordnance survey office, Southampton, and it was not until twenty years later that he realised his ambition, and, resigning his situation, became a water-colour painter. In this venture he had considerable success, but his early training as an engraver had prepared him to be a pioneer in the revival of etching, and he was one of the founders of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers in 1881. He was perhaps rather an interpreter by etching of other men's work than an original etcher, and his style, while delicate in drawing and sensitive to effects of light, was somewhat mechanical, and more reminiscent of the labours of the steel-engraver than of the spontaneity or incisiveness of the real etcher. But his plates after Turner and Corot and some modern landscape painters had many admirers, and during the time (1875–90) that reproductive etching was in high fashion they were in great demand. Probably, however, his best and most vital etched work was done from water-colours by himself. This was the case with the 'Thames,' the 'Castle,' and the 'Trossachs' sets, all of which were popular. Law, who settled in London in 1876, died at Worthing on 28 Dec. 1901, after some years of declining health. A portrait by Mr. Seymour Lucas, R.A., was reproduced in the 'Art Journal' (1902), for which magazine Law had occasionally etched a plate.

[Register of Trustees' academy; The Times, 30 Dec. 1901; Art Journal, March 1902; Bryan's Dict. of Engravers.]


LAW, Sir EDWARD FITZGERALD (1846–1908), expert in state finance, born at Rostrever House, co. Down, on 2 Nov. 1846, was third son of the nine children of Michael Law, senior partner of Law and Finlay's bank, Dublin, and afterwards director of the Bank of Ireland, by his wife Sarah Anne, daughter of Crofton FitzGerald. His eldest brother, Robert, lived on his Irish estates. His second brother, Michael, was an early member of the international courts in Egypt. Law went to schools at Brighton and St. Andrews, and thence to the Military Academy at Woolwich. He was gazetted to the royal artillery in July 1868, and served in India. There he became known as a sportsman and a fine steeple-chaser, while his instinct for topography and linguistic aptitude in French, German, and Russian promised well for a military career. But, invalided home, he retired from the army for private reasons in October 1872, keeping his name on the reserve of Officers. Going to Russia, he next started business there as an agent for agricultural machinery and, after mastering many difficulties, prospered until he was ruined by the conduct of his partners, against whom he brought legal proceedings. Thereupon he joined Messrs. Hubbard, the English firm of Russian merchants, and in their behalf visited every part of the Russian empire. His intimate knowledge of the country and the people was turned to account in a long series of magazine articles on Russian ambitions in Central Asia.

From December 1880 to March 1881, and