it is gratifying to know how much good the requirement has accomplished; applicants to whom the subject of professional ethics was a sealed book or in the clouds are now seriously reading, studying and memorizing the Canons. Their answers to questions thereon are interesting and instructive; somewhat highflown and sophomoric, but, nevertheless, they have the true ring and all the appearances of sincerity. We strongly recommend that similar conditions be placed in the standard rules.

There is a practical side to the matter of obtaining the enactment of rules regulating admission to the Bar which should be considered. There is always more or less difficulty and opposition, and it generally takes years to accomplish results. That may be due to the fact that in most states it is a legislative or political and not a judicial function, and that many county politicians have hopes of eventually becoming lawyers, and do not wish the gates to be closed by requirements which they cannot meet, or perhaps it is because the legislator has a tender spot in his heart for the "poor lad" who may be foreclosed, or because he himself having been admitted under the old conditions does not realize the necessity of advancing the requirements, or because he believes that every man admitted will find his level, or because there is always room on top, or because he fears his constituents, with whom lawyers are not always popular, may think that the proposed rules are giving them special privileges. Doctors, dentists, horse doctors, horseshoers and the like can obtain all the protection they ask for, but it is difficult to procure legislation raising conditions for admission to the Bar, and for that reason too much should not be demanded at the outset. The law schools should not endeavor to control the situation, and should be reasonably content to be in advance of the state rules, and require for their degrees even higher standards than the rules, which should never exceed in their requirements more than the average intelligence of the community will stand for.

If a law professor believes that a good and sufficient education in the law cannot be obtained by less than four or five years of law school attendance, well and good. None will dispute with him or his proposition, but he should not as part of his belief

insist that the state make the Bar admission requirements similar, because he knows that he cannot keep in his school much beyond the time required by the state rules, the student who is impatient to begin his life work.

If the law faculties think that no one should be allowed to matriculate at their law schools unless he is a graduate of a proper college or university, that is their privilege, but they should not demand a college degree as a condition for admission to the Bar examinations. Why? Not that either proposition is beyond defence, but simply because neither condition would be granted, and all should not be risked in the vain desire to obtain the impossible.

The modern tendency is to shorten the years of study required of professional men rather than to lengthen them, and that demand is so insistent that it is being heeded. In a few years the leading colleges will be granting their arts degree at the end of three years; many of them do so now in effect, by counting the last year in the four-year art course as the first year in the three-year law course, thus bestowing their A. B. and LL. B. degrees in six years from matriculation, and even with that they have great difficulty in holding their impatient law students during the third year. The average age of admission to the Bar in New York state is close on to twenty-six years, and neither the state nor the students will stand for a four-year study requirement, which, it must be understood, we do not oppose.

In New York, graduates of colleges and universities are admitted to the Bar examinations after two years of law study. That time is entirely too short, and the answer papers of the twoyear men demonstrate it. We do not approve of the one-year discrimination in favor of college graduates over those who are not, and the results of the examinations afford no reason for the same. Public opinion will not consent that the period of law study of non-college graduates be raised to four years in order that the collegiates may be compelled to study for three years, or in aid of three-year law school courses. We are confronted with a condition and not a theory; two years of law study is too short for any person, and as we cannot get four years for non-graduates,

we advocate the abolition of the discrimination against them, and think that all alike should be compelled to study law not less than three years. We are not quarreling with any theories predicated on the greater age and mental activity and receptivity of college graduates; we contend that two years of law study is not sufficient to qualify any person properly for the Bar.

There should be an entire separation of the law school and the state in the matter of admission to the Bar, and no attempt should be made to conform state rules in relation thereto to the business or educational interests of the law schools.

We think that the standard rules should contain, among others, the following conditions:

(a). That every candidate for admission to the Bar should be a citizen of the United States.

(b). That he should have at least a high school education or its equivalent as defined by state educational authority before he begins the study of the law.

(c). That no candidate should be admitted to the Bar examinations unless he has studied law in the prescribed manner for not less than three years, two of which must be spent in good and regular attendance upon and the successful completion of the prescribed course of study at a proper law school, and one year in the service of a bona fide law clerkship in the law office of a practising attorney in the state.

(d). That law schools whose time is allowable under the rules should meet the requirements heretofore stated and as set forth in the rules regulating admission to the Bar in New York.

(e). That no candidate be certified for admission who does not successfully pass a special examination in pleading, practice and evidence.

(f). That each applicant for admission be required to state in the affidavit filed by him on his application that he has read the Canons of Professional Ethics adopted in the state, or in lieu thereof those adopted by the American Bar Association, and has faithfully endeavored to make himself acquainted with the same, and that he will endeavor to conform his professional conduct thereto, and that the examiners be requested to examine on said

Canons of Professional Ethics all applicants applying to it for admission to the Bar, and that the faculties of all law schools within the state be requested to teach the subject of professional ethics.

If the law hopes to maintain its ancient supremacy as the first and the learned profession it has a task before it. We are not pessimistic, but it is fast losing its prestige by reason of the adoption by medicine and other professions of higher educational and professional requirements for entrance thereto, and the consequent inflow to the Bar of those who cannot aspire to medicine or the other regulated professions, and who find the law cheap and easy.

Admission to the Bar should for many obvious reasons represent some cost as well as sacrifice in time, service and study.

We believe that proper rules regulating admission to the Bar honestly enforced, and containing the conditions above set forth, will commend themselves to the people as well as to the profession, be of great public service, tend to elevate the standards of education and morality at the Bar, restore to it its primacy, and be a monument to the intelligent action of the American Bar Association which formulated them and aided in their adoption.

THE STUDY OF LAW BY CORRESPONDENCE.

BY

JAMES PARKER HALL,

DEAN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW SCHOOL.

During the past twenty years correspondence study of all kinds has increased in this country by leaps and bounds. Long regarded with suspicion by institutions of higher education, correspondence courses are now offered in a large number of subjects by several prominent American universities, and a much larger number of students are enrolled in private correspondence schools. A great variety of subjects are taught in this way, many of them very well taught indeed. The work appeals to a class of students whose attitude toward their education can scarcely be improved. They are earnest, ambitious, hard-working men and women, more mature in years than the average college student, and vastly more mature in the sober experiences and responsibilities of life. They labor under the handicap, for the most part, of devoting their best energies to something else before they can find time for their study; but their eagerness to make the most of their opportunities does much to offset this. Students who have done academic work by correspondence at the University of Chicago, and, with this to their credit, have entered the university and pursued resident work, have, on the average, done better in such resident work than have students who have entered the university with advanced standing from other approved colleges. This may not be interpreted, of course, to mean that correspondence work is superior to resident work, for undeniably the very best students are those who have spent the full time in residence; but it indicates the superior diligence and enthusiasm of the correspondence student.

The genuine value of much of the work done by correspond