declared that persons were being constantly admitted to the Bar of Texas who were without qualifications. "Many of these young men," he said, "secured license by knowing what questions would be asked and through the kindness of some friend on the board of examiners who would say, 'Oh, he is a common sense fellow; he will make a lawyer some day.'" And the President of the Association, in 1894, in his address declared that in his experience of nineteen years he could only call to mind one applicant who had been rejected. In 1903, the Committee on Legal Education reported in favor of requiring all applicants to be examined on literary subjects, but the Association after a lengthy discussion rejected the recommendation. One member, who could not conceal his contempt for the suggestion that applicants should pass an examination in elementary Latin, announced that the dead languages were dead and had been dead for a long time. That he had never derived any benefit from them, and that he would not know them if he met them in the street. All of which may have been true without impairing the wisdom and value of the committee's recommendation. But in his mind it settled the matter conclusively and at once against the report. Another participant in the discussion was one who could see no reason for expecting a lawyer to know anything about history, as he himself was unable to tell, as he said, "without severe deliberation," whether James the First followed the First Charles or the Second. He frankly confessed that he did not believe it made an iota of difference whether James died before Charles was born or was born after Charles died. Still another, again recurring to the Latin recommendation, effectually disposed of it by saying: Judge Beckley, of the Supreme Court of Georgia, "don't know any more about Latin than a pig, and yet he is acknowledged to be, perhaps, the greatest living judge in the South today." Having disposed of the Latin recommendation in the manner indicated, he next gave attention to the recommendation as to mathematics. Declaring his conviction that a knowledge of

mathematics had no bearing whatever on one's qualifications to practice law, he demonstrated the truth of his assertion by saying: "I bet there are not two lawyers present who can define that word 'quadratics.' I know I can't. Talk about requiring that examination, I bet there are not five lawyers present who can define what it means, or care what it means." But a member of the legal profession surely ought to be a man possessed of some general culture, and no one should come to the study of the law with faculties not trained by previous study.

In South Carolina, prior to 1879, a person was not required to pass any examination if only he had studied law for two years in a lawyer's office, or had been graduated from some reputable law school. But in that year an act was passed requiring an examination in all cases. In a report made to the Bar Association of that state by the Committee on Legal Education, in 1904, attention was called to the fact that no preliminary examination on literary subjects is required. The committee considered the absence of such a test as a defect in the law, but made no recommendation for its amendment. It did, however, venture to say that it felt "satisfied that, if the time be not now ripe, in the near future this requirement of preliminary education, before the student enters upon his law course, will be insisted upon, and such requirement enacted into law." If in a state which has produced a Calhoun, a Petigru and a Legaré the time is not yet ripe for insisting that men who come to its Bar shall have a reasonable education, the fact is indeed deplorable.

It is a rather remarkable fact that some of the most strenuous opposition in the South to any advance of standards, even when demanded by the Bar, has come from the law schools themselves. Thus, in North Carolina, when the Committee on Legal Education reported in favor of requiring all candidates for admission to the Bar to study law for two years the dean of one of the law schools opposed it very vigorously before the State Bar Association. He asserted that those

who had already been admitted into the temple were endeavoring to close up the entrance and make it "a little wicker gate through which the young men of North Carolina pass before they come out into the forum." After a discussion, which continued for two days, the Association adopted the recommendation, and the Supreme Court later made the change as requested.

In Georgia, the State Bar Association has taken action twice within the last six years in favor of changing the law of the state so as to take away the right of admission on the diploma of a law school, except in the case of schools having a two years' course. A bill to that effect was introduced into the legislature in 1904, and was defeated because of the opposition of a one year school which claimed that the time was not ripe for such a change.

The officials of law schools who oppose an advance in the standards governing admission to the Bar prejudice the interests of their own schools. Experience has shown that an effect of increased admission requirements is to diminish the number of students studying in offices and to increase proportionately the number who resort to the schools. The reason why there are comparatively few students in Southern law schools is that admission to the Bar in the Southern states is so easy a matter that the young men entering the profession think it unnecessary to avail themselves of the opportunities which the schools afford. When the Bar examinations are made severe, and candidates are required to study for a period of two or three years, the Southern law schools will not want for students and the necessary income for the payment of salaries will be forthcoming.

Before concluding this address, I desire to call attention to the matter of the law degrees. The old Litchfield Law School, the first to be established in the United States and which was founded in 1784, never conferred degrees. Neither did the Northampton School, which was opened in 1823. These schools were not incorporated, and consequently had no

power to give degrees. The degree of bachelor of laws was conferred for the first time, in the United States, in 1820, when Harvard University bestowed it upon six graduates. The Yale Law School, which dates from 1824, and next to Harvard, is the oldest of the existing law schools in this country, did not confer the degree until 1843. The law school of the University of Virginia, which came next, being established in 1826, began conferring law degrees in 1840. The original policy of that university was adverse to the entire degree system, and it was not until 1848 that it consented to confer the bachelor of arts degree.

The degree conferred by most law schools in this country is that of LL. B., although some few schools confer the degree of B. L.

It

In Scotland, a distinction is made between these degrees. The LL. B. degree was in that country originally created by the university commissioners, appointed under the Universities Act of 1858. The ordinance of the commissioners establishing the degree was passed in 1863, and the degree was first conferred in 1864. The B. L. degree was instituted in 1874. In that country the LL. B. degree is essentially an academic and scientific distinction. It implies a considerable amount of general culture, because no one is eligible as a candidate for the degree unless he holds the degree of master of arts (or its equivalent) of a recognized university. entails a course of study and examinations in a wide range of legal subjects, which includes several subjects not ordinarily required for professional purposes, such as jurisprudence, international law and constitutional history. In contrast with the LL. B. degree, the B. L. degree is regarded as a distinctly professional degree and one standing on a lower level. It was designed for those students who have not much time for general education or for the study of the scientific branches of the law. The intention regarding that degree is to restrict it to those whose aim in attending law classes is distinctly practical. Candidates for this degree need not be

Oxford is that of

Before the Refor

graduates in arts, but have only to satisfy some very moderate requirements as to general knowledge and to pass an examination in legal subjects, which is almost exclusively restricted to subjects of a purely practical and professional nature. In England, the law degree given at B. C. L., while at Cambridge it is LL. B. mation degrees were given at Oxford and Cambridge in jure civili, canonico or utroque. When the universities discontinued the teaching of canon law the law degrees were in jure civili only. The abbreviations LL. B. and LL. D. (legum baccalaureus, legum doctor) are said to have come into use in England sometime in the seventeenth century and they ultimately prevailed at Cambridge, but not at Oxford. But even at Cambridge the full official style was in jure civile down to 1858. But in his Cambridge legal studies (p. 61) Mr. Clark • cites the statutes of Edward VI, 1549, in which it was provided that the studiosus legum is to read the Institutiones privately for a year, then to attend the lectures of the publicus juris prælector for five years and to keep certain exercises before becoming baccalaureus juris. The legum baccalaureus is to attend a further course of three years and after more exercises to be chosen doctor legum. The doctor legum is, after his doctorate, to apply himself to the leges Angliæ.

Only a few years ago the whole country was scandalized by the sale of degrees by a man called Farr, who operated under a charter procured under the laws of Tennessee for a National College of Law. This notorious individual granted degrees for twenty-five dollars to those who were willing to pay for them. His operations were not confined to Tennessee, but he flooded the country with letters proposing to confer the honorary degree of doctor of laws for "the incidental fee of ten dollars." The parties addressed were requested to forward the fee and answer certain ridiculous questions of which the following are illustrations:

"Are you married or single?"

"Do

you believe in the coeducation of the sexes?"