from the respective faculties a recommendation of the best sixty titles, to guide the Committee in its selection.

"Your committee will now (a) state the reasons for the above recommendations, and (b) explain the mode of preparation of the accompanying Preliminary List.

"(a) Reasons for the Recommendations. The prime reasons are that the study of the history of the various branches of law is now much obstructed by the virtual inacessibility of a great amount of important material, which exists in print, but it is through several circumstances practically going to waste. The chief circumstance is that it consists of articles scattered through serial journals o from twenty to forty volumes, of which only one or two sets are usually kept in any library. The result is that, when a class of fifty or a hundred students is set to read an article of prime value in some subject, one of two things happens: Either the bulk of the class become discouraged at finding the volume already taken out by some enterprising student; or, if they persist, and the bulk of the class manage to read the article, it is worn out and becomes illegible in a year or two, and is thereby useless unless the set to which it belongs is entirely or partly replaced at great expense. Between these two dilemnas, very little of such reading comes actually to be done. In short, what is needed is a handy and inexpensive series of selected essays, which shall do for this part of legal study exactly what the case-book has done for the study of cases. The same exigency leads to the same remedy. Almost the same obstacles prevent the use of single chapters of history in special treatises. A further reason for reprinting a select series of essays is that the easy access of such a set will stimulate instructors to send their students oftener to the parts which are important in their respective subjects. If each school would have from two to ten copies ready on the library shelves, the amount of voluntary reading by the students, when reference was made by the instructors, would be many times what it now is. We add that these volumes would also find a good demand in the private libraries of studious practitioners, who do not possess sets of all the journals, and do not know where to dig out the useful and interesting articles from the back volumes on the Bar Association Library's shelves. From the publishers' point of view, this will greatly encourage the prospect of marketing the series. From out point of view, it is a further reason for thus helping to stimulate the wide study of legal history. "We therefore earnestly recommend that the Association sanction this enterprise by the above resolutions; and we can state that, with this sanction, a publisher will easily be found.

"(b) Mode of Preparation of the Preliminary List. In preparing the list, the materials of search were assigned by the Com

mittee into three parts. Jones' Index to Legal Periodicals was equally divided; and the Catalogue of a large law library was equally divided. Each member then prepared a list of his part, by perusing the titles of articles in Jones' Index (verifying when needed), and by examining the treatises on the library shelves. Then two members, taking the ten leading law reviews, went through them volume by volume to date, thus covering that part of the ground a second time. Then one member looked through the treatises on the shelves of a library of 50,000 volumes, thus covering that part of the ground a second time. The resulting three lists were then consolidated by the Chairman of the Committee, and reduced to one hundred and fifty titles. These titles were then roughly classified, and appear as a Preliminary List, appended hereto. From this a further selection will have to be made, reducing the total to not less than sixty and not more than one hundred, averaging thirty pages each.

"This list therefore represents the following features:

"(1) It is based on a survey of practically all the printed material.

"(2) It includes only the modern scholarly researches of readable interest and of general reference value to students, though we must here apologize to those few scholars whose articles have undoubtedly lurked somewhere unnoticed in the mass of material examined.

"(3) It does not attempt (with rare exceptions) to include anything from the few professed treatises on the history of the law (such as Pollock & Maitland, Bigelow on Procedure, Digby on Real Property); the reasons being, first, that several copies of these can easily be provided, and, secondly, that extracts of single chapters would usually be of no service from works which treat the subject in such detail.

"(4) It includes essays on almost all the main subjects of law, from Corporations to Wills, and covers also the general field of Sources of the Law, Law Reform in the 1800's, and Colonial Law.

"(5) It forms substantially a supplement to Pollock & Maitland's "History of the English Law before the Time of Edward I." As American scholars are now aware, no comprehensive and final work on the intervening period to 1900 can be attempted or expected until the Year Books are re-edited, which will take another generation. In the meanwhile, this service will collate in serviceable form the most useful and essential parts of our knowledge now extant. It will serve to keep the rising generation familiar with what is thus far attained. It is because this part of our history is likely otherwise to be buried from general professional knowledge that we earnestly desire to re-present it to the profession in this accessible form."

The resolutions submitted by the Committee were adopted, on motion, by the Association.

The Committee on Nomination of Officers recommended the election of Wm. P. Rogers, Dean of the Cincinnati University Law School, as President of the Association, and Wm. R. Vance, Dean of the George Washington University Law School, as Secretary; for members of the Executive Committee Henry Wade Rogers, Dean of the Yale University Law School, John H. Wigmore, Dean of the Northwestern University Law School, and James B. Brooks, of the Syracuse University Law School. On motion the report of the Committee was approved, and the gentlemen nominated were duly elected.

On Wednesday evening, after the meetings of the American Bar Association and the Association of Law Schools, a reception was tendered in honor of the visiting lawyers by the bar and leading citizens of St. Paul. On Thursday afternoon the social feature of the day was a luncheon given at the Town and Country Club of St. Paul, where fully four hundred members of the Association were entertained by the lawyers of St. Paul. Chartered trolley cars carried the guests from the club house of the Country Club to Minnehaha Falls, where a steamboat was in waiting to convey them by way of the Mississippi River back to St. Paul. On Friday afternoon, the West Publishing Company at its plant entertained the members of the American Bar Association, the Association of American Law Schools, the Minnesota State Bar Association, the Minneapolis Bar Association, and the Ramsey County Bar Association at an informal luncheon and reception from one until five o'clock. About five hundred lawyers attended

this function. The same afternoon the private art gallery of Mr. James J. Hill, at his residence in St. Paul, was thrown open to the members of the Association and their friends. On Saturday the program consisted of an all-day excursion to Lake Minnetonka, including a boat. ride on the lake and luncheon at the Lafayette Club.

The twenty-ninth annual dinner of the American Bar Association was held on Friday night, August 31st, at the new Auditorium in Minneapolis. Chartered cars carried the guests from St. Paul to the doors of the Auditorium. Lavish decorations of palms, flowers, and bunting transformed the Auditorium into a splendid banqueting hall. The music was furnished by an orchestra of fifty pieces from the Minneapolis Symphony and by a volunteer chorus of some forty of the best singers from the Minneapolis and St. Paul bar, who led in popular patriotic songs, in which every one present joined. The balconies were crowded with the wives and friends of the members of the Association, who came to hear the speakers. About five hundred delegates and members of the Association were seated at the tables, while one long table in front of the orchestra accommodated the toastmaster, the speakers, and some of the more distinguished members. Following a toast to the President of the United States, which was joined in by every one present, George R. Peck of Chicago, the retiring President and toastmaster, introduced Hon. John A. Johnson, Governor of Minnesota, who responded to the toast "The State of Minnesota." The other speakers were Judge Alton B. Parker, of New York, P. B. Mignault, K. C., Montreal, John M. Dryden, of Omaha, N. P. Koon, of Minneapolis, L. R. Wilfley, Judge of the recently cre

ated United States Court for China and Korea, F. Charles Hume, Jr., a young lawyer from Houston, Texas, whose brilliant toast "The Young Lawyer," was the event of the occasion, and "Private" John Allen of Mississippi, who de

livered a speech which was a masterpiece of wit and brevity. Mr. Allen's speech was the final outburst of the evening. When he had finished, the assembly, rising, united in singing Auld Lang Syne.

MR. TOASTMASTER, FELLOW PRACTITIONERS, AND YOUNG LAWYERS:—

I feel that I need no introduction to the lawyers of America. In this distinguished company, I feel assured that I do not speak in a stranger's voice-but in my

own.

For many years my name has been a household word among the members of my own family. Whether the premonitory rumbles of coming greatness have prevented me here, I know not. In my own State, I am not known solely as a lawyer. My fame is also titular; I am called "Judge" by the obsequious officeboy, and by the janitor-"where thrift may follow fawning." But my pre-eminence rests on no firmer foundation than authorship of a work on an important legal subject. And in justice to myself, and to my State, I must say that I owe my juristic rank, and such name and fame as I bear, to my-"DOMESTIC RELATIONS."

It would be superfluous for me to say that this is the happiest moment of my

life, because it is not. After-dinner speaking is an effort to appear at ease and happy, though fearful and tumultuous. It is the paté-de-foi-gras of oratory—a conditional, rather than a normal, mode of expression. The archetype of the art is the impromptu speech. It is oft an unplumed squab for flight, and heavy with "the stuff that dreams are made on" -the art that's long when time is fleeting. It attains its perfection ex post facto, or retroactively; that is, after the banquet hall's deserted and the speaker is homeward bound alone. How pregnant then and cheerful, are the words of philosophy: Sweet are the uses of-retrospection.

Upon this occasion, I urge no claim to powers of off-hand eloquence, I cannot say, and it would be vain, and unjust for me to assert, that this is an extemporaneous effort. The weight of the internal evidence would crush the contention; and the faithful years of laborious preparation

would shrink aghast at such wild asseveration, and put to shame my base ingratitude. On the contrary, behold in me the sophomoric apostle of the midnight oil-a sedentary sacrifice to a young life's masterpiece!

From the lawyers of Texas I comeunarmed-bringing to you the message of civilization. Without hope of reward, and without fear of recognition, I have come to lend the charm of high professional character, and impart tone, to this meeting. It is not to me, however, that your thanks are due for my presence here. It was my brethren of the bar that sent me on this mission, conscious of its perils. I will not shield them. It was they that did command and hasten my departure hither, with the classic Spartan adjuration,-Go: come back with your nerve or on it!

Gentlemen, I am a modest man, as all men are that say they are. And my chief characteristic, aside from physical pulchritude, is candor; that is, I am a blunt man, even to the point of dullness. Yet I clearly perceive that there is a solemn duty devolving upon those of us that have attained the heights, to cast benign glances upon the young lawyers struggling in the valley below. For at last the young lawyer is the hope of the profession, just as he is the despair of the trial judge.

This evening I shall not shirk my grave responsibility. I shall "a round unvarnished tale deliver," presenting the subject in its static and dynamic aspects; and undertaking to impress upon the young lawyers the lessons to be drawn from the careers of the eminent men that adorn our profession. And this, notwithstanding I must speak largely of myselfa part of my practice I have always had the tenacity and good fortune to hold.

From childhood, my favorite form of composition has ever been auto-biog

raphy. I despise shams and pretences. A man should be what he is, and say what he is. I do not pretend to be a great lawyer-I am!-Is it come to pass, forsooth, that greatness is a mockery? In these untoward days, must we needs forswear our fundamental convictions? Not I, Gentlemen. My position is sustained by the highest authority in the land. Without specific citation, I refer you to my own edition of "PARENTS' REPORTS," for the leading case upon which I rely-styled, "Our Boy against The World:" announcing the doctrine so dear to the young lawyer as the bulwark of his premature renown-the elemental principle, so tenderly expressed by the fireside poet: Whatever mother says, is right.

And yet I was once a young lawyer. And today I love the young lawyer, even as I do myself; and all that I shall say will proceed from an impulse to do him good. I am neither "case"-hardened, nor embittered by "multiplicity of suits." I shall be cruel only to be bright. My sympathies are broad and deep; yet I can look upon him in the "dry light" of science-dispassionately and without asperity. So tonight I shall lay aside all distinctions and treat the young lawyers as my equals.

The young lawyer exults in logic and analysis-he defies both. Let us contemplate him. He may be described as the genus homo importans—“deep on whose front engraven, deliberation sits and public care." He is res tota—in the modern tongue, "the whole works." He is great in persona, rather than in rem or in rebus. According to experienced trial judges, the "young lawyer" is a contradiction in terms; yet a necessary evil, whose chief function is to grow older. Like the Law, he is a process, not a completed productuniversity diplomas notwithstanding. In

judicial opinion he is obiter dictum. Among lawyers, he is sui generis-a sort of difference without a distinction. The jurists appear to concede that he exists. by presumption of law; and the weight of authority seems to be that he thrives by presumption in fact. He can scarcely be said to come within the purview of the laity: his name loometh large on his own sign-to the public it shineth as from afar -and very faintly. He is not expressly classified among the public utilities, but he no doubt has his place-the difficulty is to find it. His sphere is coextensive with that ascribed by Lord Brougham to the Law of England-to get twelve men in a "box"-and jam down the lid.

He is a peripatetic institution of learning-dedicated to his own glorification, endowed with majestic powers of his own imagining, and founded upon the three cardinal virtues, faith, hope, and charity: faith in his own infinite knowledge, hope for the obtuseness of judges and juries, and charity for the older lawyers that have all the business.-And the greatest of these is faith.

He disdains to shine by reflected effulgence. He is a legal light in, and unto, himself, only waiting to be-extinguished. To him law and abstract justice are the same. He is long on theory and short on practice. With him "knowledge comes but wisdom lingers." And until he realizes that men and all human institutions are mere approximations to perfection, and that good and evil alike. are persistent forces, with juridical "eye in fine frenzy rolling," he crouches in his lair, like a fierce giraffe, ready to leap upon quixotic provocation, to right the wrongs of an erring world. And be it said to his honor, that he stands peerless and transcendent in the domain of "Buffalo Jurisprudence," and "Kangaroo Procedure."

I have never talked to a young lawyer that did not "out-Herod Herod" for prosperity. It is with him not an occasional or acute attack, but a chronic condition. As a young lawyer I had more business than I could have attended to in sixty years, and the magnitude of my income was incredible. But as I grew older, the law somehow fell into disrepute with the clients, and my coffers contained naught but "intangible assets."

The lawyer should know everything— the young lawyer does. Solomon could not have matched him. And "the memory of man runneth not to the contrary" -of his. If the old lawyer knows most, the young lawyer knows best. It is no trouble for him to tell what the law is— it is rather a surprise. But the evil day cometh apace, when with "assurance doubly sure" and stride triumphant, he marches into court with his first case; and, enveloped in the darkness of his own pleadings, he falls into the clutches of the grisly old guerrilla, General DemurLet us not paint the pathetic picture, nor voice the lamentation.

rer.

The young lawyer is gregarious-he cometh in flocks. But tremble not my friends at the annual increase of competitors; for though many young lawyers are called, few deliver the "merchandise." To the established practitioner the situation is not hopeless, but has its compensations. Let us be just; for we know that the young lawyer is a valuable litigious asset. And furthermore, whether we agree that the law is an exact science, we know that it hath a sort of certainty that often amounts to fatality; and that, while its policy is to put an end to litigation, its practice puts an end to many young lawyers-thus establishing in the profession a subtle relation of equilibrium between genesis and exodus. Also let us be generous. And when the young