to know the language in order to read the law. Such a lawbook written to-day would seem mere pedantry; and yet many Latin sentences and phrases are found in law studies now, so that to know how to read Latin well is still important in reading law.

All would perhaps agree that the usual history course, including constitutional history, should be recommended. The development of civilization and the advance in civil government are so intertwined with the growth and development of the law that in pursuing either one. cannot avoid the other, and the student who has completed a course in history is delighted and charmed later with his legal studies, when he discovers himself frequently crossing and traversing familiar paths.

I should also include in my recommendation the courses in economics and social science. These studies aid in the comprehension of the law's development. There is here seen in embryo that which later by custom, by public sentiment, and by statutory enactment becomes the law of the land. Here is shown the influence of the masses upon the law's formation and growth. The direct relation between the lawyer and the people is here presented in a light that will not be found. elsewhere.

1 should not leave out of my recommendation a thorough course in mathematics. The subject is not only valuable of itself, for the use the lawyer will later make of it, but it gives a training in accuracy as does no other study. If there is one defect in the work of the average lawyer which above all others is most unpardonable and most dangerous, it is in the lack of accuracy. There is no work known where carefulness of detail and accuracy of statement is of more importance than in the practice of the law.

In nearly all other professions, one's work is done where only the general public watch and criticise. But the work of the lawyer is in most cases done under the inspection of an adversary who is employed to use all his trained powers in pointing out defects in the positions assumed and in the propositions laid down. It is his business to see that nothing is gained from his client except by exact justice. Do not have a fear of the blustering lawyer, but beware of him who is always caring for the details. It is the accurate man who is likely to call you to account, and to cause you regret and humiliation for lack of care, or for hasty and inaccurate work.

Many other courses might be mentioned with approval, but in fact the whole time permitted for one's paper could well be occupied in pointing out the most valuable university courses to be selected by one intending to study law; but I realize how much more weight a matter of this kind carries with it, if presented by a committee which has made of it a careful study.

I trust that, whether we adopt the rule requiring two years' preliminary college work or not, the association may regard this matter of sufficient importance to submit it to a committee for investigation, with instructions to report at our next meeting.

The Honor System.

There is a growing sentiment in favor of a larger self-government among the students of professional schools. I had hoped we might have presented to us a paper on this subject by some one who has to observe the results of the honor system in his school work. But since we were unable to place this subject on our program, I desire to mention it briefly,

hoping there may be elicited some discussion bearing upon it, from which we may all derive benefit.

When young men are sufficiently advanced to begin their professional study, they are old enough, and wise enough, to assume responsibility for their conduct, and should to some extent be charged with and made responsible for the good order and proper management of the daily affairs of the student body. Especially should this be so with law students whose business in life is largely that of government and the enforcement of law.

The great majority of young men in the law schools are there for earnest work, and are opposed to any kind of frivolous conduct which detracts from their studies or deprives them of the highest possible benefits to be secured in the school. They realize that the school exists and is conducted only for their advantage, and that they as the sole beneficiaries sustain any loss arising from disorder or bad government. Among such students, also, there will be found a strong feeling of loyalty for their school and a determination to maintain its honor. While there will in all schools be found the occasional young man, having little or no regard for such sentiments, who cares more to be looked upon as a smart disturber, able to evade or violate all established rules of conduct, it is certain that the better element in the school will quickly give to him his proper estimate and, to the extent of their power, will bring him under control or eliminate him. He belongs to a period long since outgrown, when rowdyism was tolerated, if not expected, in professional schools, because schools were formerly so largely composed of untrained, uneducated. young men. This situation has so chan

ged that ungentlemanly conduct in the classroom, or elsewhere in connection with the school, is a rare occurrence and is as quickly condemned by the student body as by the faculty.

Young men desire responsibility and wish to be trusted. In placing upon them a portion of the responsibility for the school's conduct, reserving, of course, power for final action in the faculty, we are teaching lessons the effect of which will never be lost. There is no better opportunity to test this plan than in the written examinations. Put the young men upon their honor here. Give them the period entirely to themselves, and at the end of each paper let every one certify that he has neither given nor received aid during the examination. Let the class obligate themselves to inform upon any one who is seen using any unfair means, and even permit them to pass upon his guilt or innocence. A somewhat limited experience in this matter induces me to believe that if the students undertake this much of government most satisfactory results will be obtained.

In closing, permit me to express the hope that the members of this association may not lose interest in the great purposes for which the association is formed, and may not lose faith in its power to accomplish those purposes. Let us rather stimulate ourselves to greater exertions for the better accomplishment of the noble work to which we are devoting our energies-the best possible training of the young men under our charge who are to be the future moulders of thought and the governors of our nation's destiny.

To this great field of work we have dedicated our lives, and in it we shall find sufficient, both of labor and compensation, to justify our devotion to it.

TH

HE seventh annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools was held at Portland, Me., on August 26 and 28, 1907. The sessions were held at 3 o'clock in the afternoon in the common council room in the City Hall, the President of the association, William P. Rogers, dean of the Cincinnati University Law School, occupying

the chair.

University of Kansas School of Law: James W. Green.

University of Maine Law School: W.

E. Walz, L. A. Emery, Charles Hamlin, L. C. Souther. University of Michigan School of Law: Harry B. Hutchins, Henry M. Bates, Robert E. Bunker, Albert H. Walker. University of Minnesota School of Law:

Alfred F. Mason.

lege of Law, George H. Boke. University of Chicago Law School: Julian Mack.

Cincinnati University Law School: William P. Rogers, F. B. James, Chas. T.

Greve.

Columbia University School of Law:

George W. Kirchwey.

Cornell University College of Law: Frank Irvine.

University of Denver School of Law:

George C. Manley.

George Washington University Law School: William R. Vance, Ernest G. Lorenzen, Walter C. Clephane, Melville Church.

Harvard University Law School: James

George B. Costigan, Jr., George D.

Ayers, William G. Hastings. Northwestern University School of Law:

John H. Wigmore, Albert M. Kales. University of Pennsylvania Law School:

William D. Lewis, W. E. Mikell, C. D. Hening, F. H. Bohlen.

Pittsburgh Law School: A. M. Thompson, Wm. H. McClung, Wm. A. Blakeley.

St. Louis Law School: William S. Curtis.

St. Paul College of Law: Clarence W. Halbert.

Syracuse University Law School: James B. Brooks.

Beale, Jr., Eugene Wambaugh. University of Illinois Law School: Fred

erick Green.

Indiana University School of Law: Edwin R. Keedy.

State University of Iowa College of Law: Charles N. Gregory, E. A. Wilcox.

Intosh.

Washburn College School of Law: E. B. Osborn.

Yale University Law School: Henry Wade Rogers, Simeon E. Baldwin, George D. Watrous, John Wurts, James H. Webb, Epaphroditus Peck.

The following schools, members of the association, were not represented: Boston University Law School, University of Colorado Law School, Iowa College of Law of Drake University, Leland Stanford University Law School, New York University Law School, Ohio State University Law School, University of Texas Law School, Western Reserve University Law School, University of Wisconsin Law School.

The president's address, by William P. Rogers of the Cincinnati University Law School (see page 105 of this magazine), was followed by a paper read by Albert M. Kales of the Northwestern University Law School, entitled, "Wanted: In Each of the Older and More Important States Case Books Presenting an Accurate Exposition of the Law Now in Force in the Particular Jurisdiction."

Mr. Kales, in his paper, maintained that the present Harvard Law School case book had become seriously defective in not going far enough in equipping its students for actual practice at the bar in the older and more important jurisdictions, such as New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and probably Massachusetts, Ohio, and Missouri. In support of this he declared that to obtain a good working knowledge of the law of those jurisdictions on each of the topics studied in the Harvard Law School case book it was necessary carefully to note the actual departures by statute and by decision. from the law as taught by the case books to supply new topics closely related to the subject-matter of the book, and to learn the well-settled rules taught by the case book or the solution of controverted questions, in terms of the cases of the particular jurisdiction. He asserted that these steps now involved so much labor that the present day student could not do it, and was not in fact attempting to do it. By way of proof he analyzed all the Illi

nois cases on the subject of future interests and the other topics contained in the fifth and part of the sixth volume of Gray's Cases on Property to show that the same grasp which the student has of the subject-matter dealt with in Gray's Cases could not be gained in respect to the Illinois law with less than two years' work by one who devoted at least onehalf of his whole time to the classification and analysis of the Illinois cases. He asserted that the same was true of the other courses covered by the Harvard Law School case books, and that the defect which he described was yearly increasing. He proposed, therefore, that the subject-matter of the case book be so altered that it should present a true picture of the present state of the law in the particular jurisdiction with the same fidelity that it now gave us the correct understanding of the law of that ideal jurisdiction which the compiler of the present Harvard Law School case book has himself made; that this did not mean that the cases which indicated the his torical development of the English law were to be omitted, or that the great English cases which are the historical landmarks of the law are to be dispensed with, but simply that after retaining the historical and introductory matter of the different topics there should follow the cases which show what the English law was, with this difference, however, that, if there were cases of the particular jurisdiction which had incorporated the rule of the English law and made it part of the local law, the decisions from the local jurisdiction should be inserted for specific and minute study, and the cases from the English and other jurisdictions be placed in footnotes; that not infrequently it might be found advisable to put in a case from the local jurisdiction. with poor reasoning rather than a case from some other jurisdiction with good

reasoning, so that the position of the court of the local jurisdiction could be held up to class after class for criticism. He claimed that this would not result in any departure from the best educational ideals, and would in fact make for a greatly increased efficiency on the part of the student; that it would in fact result in an increased attendance at the law schools which would naturally be expected to undertake the use of the revised case books; that Prof. Langdell's idea that the law was to be studied by going to the sources demanded the change; that it was by such minute and painstaking attention to the local law that the common law itself was built up; and that the bringing of the law in the larger and more important jurisdictions to any perfection at all approaching that which the common law had attained required the same sort of work. In conclusion, he said:

We have inherited a great system of law; but it will give place to such false gods as the Code, or go the way of the spendthrift's inheritance, unless it receives in each place where it has taken root most minute and painstaking cultivation. Already there are signs of decay in the inability of Supreme Courts and lawyers to know and follow the decisions of their particular jurisdictions, and the inordinate duplication of decisions upon points of law already fully settled, and in many instances elementary. In view of the lack of organization in our bar, I believe that the perfection of the knowledge of the local law lies in the hands of our law schools. To their faculties must be intrusted the work of preparing the new case books which will link us to the past, keep us in touch with what is best about us, and yet bring a great white light to bear upon a system of law developed in the given jurisdiction. To them will fall the lot of producing a local bar as expert in the law of the given jurisdiction in the subjects taught as the present Harvard Law School case book student is in the law of that ideal jurisdiction where the Harvard Law School case books are the only authorities and his instructors are the only judges.

The discussion that followed the reading of Mr. Kales' paper was lively and interesting. The first speaker, William

D. Lewis, of the University of Pennsylvania, said:

I have a class of students who expect, with few exceptions, to practice law in the state of Pennsylvania. It impressed me as I listened to the paper that the difficulty which the author had in mind was somewhat exaggerated. I am not familiar with Mr. Gray's case book, therefore I cannot reply to illustrations drawn from it, but I feel quite certain that if he would ask the students in the University of Pennsylvania whether they had any difficulty in finding out from the professors what was the law of Pennsylvania on any point which had been covered by the leading cases studied, he would find that they would feel that they had the law of Pennsylvania. Indeed, I think the misconception-if I may put it so of the gentleman that we have listened to, is that the average teacher takes the Harvard case book, or whatever other case book he has for his class, and confines his own knowledge and teaching to the things in that case book. I am quite certain that if you take a Harvard case book, or any other case book, and try to teach law to a class of students who are going to practice in Pennsylvania, or in any other particular state, and confine your own knowledge to what you yourself get out of the case book, you are not teaching the law in Pennsylvania or in any other jurisdiction. I think we must presume that the average law school teacher knows something beyond the case book he is teaching, and does know the law of his jurisdiction.

The point of view expressed in the paper is that the important thing is to teach the student the law of the jurisdiction in which he expects to practice. So far as Pennsylvania is concerned, I do not think you can do that if you confine yourself to Pennsylvania cases. An illustration occurs to me. In the early Pennsylvania cases the test of partnership was a share in profits. The English case of Cox v. Hodgman went back of that rule. The later Pennsylvania cases and the later English cases substantially follow that rule. Now, I do not think you can understand the law of Pennsylvania on that subject, or prepare your students to meet any difficult application of it, unless you understand the earlier Pennsylvania cases and the later Pennsylvania cases, as well as the earlier and the later English cases on that subject. In other words, if we take the test just as he put it-that what we want to do is to teach the law as it is-we cannot do it unless we go outside of our own jurisdiction.

John D. Lawson, of the University of Missouri School of Law:

Coming from one of the states mentioned by the gentleman whose paper we have lis