opinions they pronounced as judges. No judge who has lived in this country, or any other, not even Marshall, has had so large and so direct an influence upon the immediate training of the Bar as these men have had as teachers and writers. Professor Gould and Professor Pomeroy are entitled to be included with them.

In this respect, that is, of teaching through the general treatises issued from them, the influence of the law schools has almost entirely passed away. No such work is now being done in them, nor is there any indication that it is likely to be revived. Methods and conditions have changed, and new times and new manners have taken their places.

Great, however, as was thus the influence of the law school of the past, the law school of the future is destined to have a greater, though operating in a different way.

Everywhere, as the result of a variety of causes-the increase in number of the schools, the improvement in their equipment and methods of teaching, the new requirements for admission to the Bar demanding better preparation-the proportion of the young men coming to the Bar, who are getting their preparation in the law schools, is constantly increasing and will continue to grow.

When I was admitted to the Bar, now more than a quarter of a century ago, and the older members here will tell the same story, there were more young men studying law in the law offices than in the law schools. The time has now come when a law student in a busy office is an anachronism, and he will soon be a curiosity. The direct and immediate influence of the law schools was never so great as it is now.

The indirect influence of the law school of the present is also marked, especially in its effect upon the standards prevailing at the Bar examinations. In the first place, the changes in the law, which are so largely doing away with the old time local examination by ephemeral committees and substituting state boards with their improved methods, have quite largely been the result of the influences and demands of the law

schools. And in the second place the standards and methods prevailing in the law schools have had a marked effect upon the standards set by the state boards. In many instances, and in a growing degree, the members of these boards are law school graduates (in some cases law school teachers) in sympathy with the aims and standards of the schools, and they thereby become excellent advocates of progress and reform. Both directly and indirectly, therefore, the law school has come to be the chief factor in the education of the Bar.

What does all this mean for the future of the American law school? In the first place, it means an enlarged demand for men and equipment, and for better men and better equipment. If the work is to be properly done, there must be trained men to do it; they must be supplied in such numbers that they can adequately perform it; they must be given such compensation and such opportunities that men of the best ability can be induced to devote themselves unreservedly to the work of teaching, and there must be such equipment of buildings and libraries that the facilities will be found at hand to do the work properly.

It means, in the second place, an enormous opportunity. Contemplate for a moment what it means to be able to train the men who directly and indirectly are to exercise the most potent influence over the growth and development of our law. We have in this country today, I suppose, considerably over one hundred law schools with something like fourteen thousand students. Think what it would mean if the thirty-five hundred or so of young men who now go out yearly from these law schools to every town and city in the land could go with not only the best possible training in the law, but with the highest possible ideals as to its duties and responsibilities and the strongest possible ambition for its improvement and advancement. I wonder if we fully realize what this practical monopoly of the law teaching means? And especially what it means to this Association? It means, of course, that this 1 See statistics given by Professor Huffcut, 25 Rep. Am. Bar Assn. 530.

Association, made up of the most important and influential law schools in the country, has substantial control of the business. It means that, if this Association improves its opportunity and does its duty, whatever is best in standards of admission, methods of instruction, order and contents of curricula may be established. What has already been accomplished in the way of requiring a three year course is a fair example of the possibilities.

It is, of course, true that the law faculties do not hold the purse. But it is also true that, practically everywhere, the managing boards or bodies of our law schools have been quick to respond to every well considered proposal for the raising of standards and improvement in the quality of the work. In some cases they have actually taken the initiative and insisted that dormant faculties should awake and move.

It means also an enormous responsibility. Responsibility is usually commensurate with opportunity, and this case is no exception. If the law schools are to train the lawyers of the future, they must themselves be equal to the task. They must be filled with legal learning, and the capacity and fitness to impart it.

Our law schools must, of course, be first and always the places wherein the best legal teaching is to be found-teaching that shall be serious, thorough and effective. Whatever is best in methods must here be found, though methods are only the means and not the end. As "life is more than meat and the body more than raiment," so the end to be attained is here of more importance than the method by which we reach it. The end is to arouse the student's interest and enthusiasm, to teach him how to think and how to reason in a legal way, to ground him in the great principles of the law, to teach him how to use the tools of his profession and to inspire him with a love of justice and a sense of honor that will make him a worthy member of a learned and honorable profession.

I think we are inclined in these days to say too much about methods and to convey the impression that some of us think

we have a sort of patent upon the only right way, and that if the student will only pursue our method he will have a guaranty of success. I have no hesitation in saying that after a considerable experience with many methods I believe that, under the right circumstances and conditions, the careful study of decided cases is best calculated to attain the ends we seek. But I realize fully that men can be well trained by other methods, and I firmly believe that the man is more than the method. Professor Dwight was a great teacher under one method, Professor Langdell under another and Judge Cooley under still another. Give us, then, men and teachers in our law schools and the methods will take care of themselves.

I think, moreover, that we shall make a mistake if we put into our law schools too many men as teachers who have had no practical experience at the Bar. It is, of course, true that the mere fact that one is a good or even a great lawyer or judge gives no assurance that he will be a good teacher, but on the other hand I believe that, in the main, no man can be really the best teacher of the law who has had no experience in practice. Law is so distinctively a practical science, it exists so necessarily for purely practical ends, so many elements enter into its operation and effect beside pure theory or clear logic, that some experience with its practical side seems to me to be essential not only to its fullest comprehension, but also to the most sympathetic and helpful attitude toward the needs and problems of those who are to practice it. Law, as it looks to the theorist in his study and law as it looks to the lawyer in consultation or the court room, are often radically different things. One of the greatest advantages of the so-called case system is, in my judgment, to be found here, that student and teacher alike are facing practical problems so far as one who lives simply in the experience of others can do so. It is, moreover, essential that the law schools shall keep in touch with the Bar. They must command its respect, inspire its confidence and receive its support. An occasional infusion of new blood, drawn from the active ranks of the profession, not

only helps to accomplish this, but also serves to prevent a whole faculty from becoming too doctrinaire in its habits and tendencies of thought.

But there is another side to the law school than its purely teaching activity.

The law schools of this country must be the places wherein the most original and most scholarly legal investigation is carried on. The law teacher has, upon the whole, the best opportunity for this work. The practicing lawyer has usually neither the time nor the facilities for making an exhaustive study of his case. His view is a partisan one and his object is to succeed in one side of a particular cause. The judge upon the Bench has the advantage, usually, of a wide experience, and the opportunity to hear the csae discussed by able counsel. He enjoys also the very important advantage of being able to see how the rule which he adopts will operate when applied to the actual affairs of men, and how it will fit into the general system of the law. As a rule, however, he does not have time enough for the most thorough investigation of the matter, and especially does he lack the time or opportunity to study the whole of the field in which the particular question lies. He gets an intensive view of a small area rather than a compre

hensive view of the whole field.

The law teacher, on the other hand, has, in the better schools at any rate, time to make himself a master of some particular subject, he has unsurpassed library facilities, he has the advantage of consultation with his colleagues who are also experts in cognate fields and he has the opportunity of hearing the discussions and answering the objections of successive classes of bright students whose arguments in many cases, as those who hear me will bear witness, would do credit to the older members of the Bar. He misses the keen interest of the advocate, he does not see the situation of the client, and, unlike the judge, he does not see so clearly how the rules which he evolves will operate in their actual application to a given controversy. But, on the whole, as has been said, he is