COURTS LIGHTLY ESTEEMED.

Frank C. Smith, esq., of New York, has spoken earnestly in favor of an elevation of the legal profession,' that it may rid itself of those characteristics which cause men to shun it whenever possible.

Those of us who are earnest and honest in our wish to see the practice of law resume its exalted position as one of the learned professions, can well afford to admit. without evasion, the unpleasant truths in connection with the present deplorable state of legal attainment among the members of the bar in general. In no other war can we accurately discern the evil and be equipped to relentlessly apply the apt remedy. We know that our courts are clogged with a mass of cases, a considerable proportion of which, as shown by the results, are without legal merit, but a still larger share of which are so involved in the intricacies of legal procedure that not only are they detained and ruinously retarded in their progress through the courts, but very often the question at issue, involving as it does the actual merits of the controversy, is wholly lost to sight, and for long periods of time, if, indeed, not ultimately, is beyond the reach of judicial action. This condition of affairs exists either because the practitioners of law are inefficient, because they are of such base caliber that they willingly degrade the profession by a willful obstruction or perversion of justice, or because of a combination of these two causes. In this judgment I am not overlooking the fruitful cause of delay in judicial tribunals furnished by our cumbersome and inadequate systems of procedure. Certain facts which I shall presently present will demonstrate that within the lines of the question under discussion the just objections to such systems have no measurable influence. Whatever is the cause of the condition against which this section is a living protest, all intelligent lawyers, yea, and an intelligent public, know what is the result thereof. Litigation is now popularly considered an evil. Men with rights to maintain or with wrongs to redress hesitate and often refuse to submit to the uncertainties, the tedious delays, and the wasting expense inevitable in the ordinary court processes of the day. The people are losing faith in the ability of their courts to arbitrate the differences of litigants accurately, speedily, and inexpensively. And the worst feature of this condition of affairs is that this waning faith is justified by the facts.

The considerations which I have thus hastily presented and the ominous data which I hold in my hand, make imperative the necessity for a swift return to the professional ideal. What is needed to-day is a bar that is soundly grounded in a thorough knowledge of the law and its practice, and which will scorn, except to bring into clearer view, the true merits of the controversy, to invoke the purely technical rules of procedure. We need a bar that recognizes its duty to principle as paramount to its duty to its clients, and which will never, in behalf of client or of self, abandon principle. In addition, it is essential that the bar shall know how to employ the rules of legal procedure so as to most completely and surely serve principle. But so far has the profession fallen from this ideal, that, judged by the results of its service in actual litigation, it is to-day a monstrous charlatan. What would be said of a trade or craft against which it could be proven that in an average of nearly 50 per cent of the attempts it made to serve its patrons it failed to secure just results because its craftsmen did not understand how to use its machinery, or, understanding this, failed to employ it so as to attain the end promised when it was intrusted to do the service? Such a trade could not retain public respect and confidence an hour after its inefficiency was known. No more can one of the learned professions. Yet this is the exact condition of the practice of law in this country to-day.

"I am aware of the surprising nature of this statement; but no one can be more startled at the facts too amply sustaining it than I was when I discovered them. Anxious to learn what the decisions of our appellate tribunals would show as to the

character of the questions submitted to and passed upon by them, I have examined the cases reported by the West systems of reporters for the period covered by the last general digest. Of the 29,942 cases decided, I ascertained that 14,447,

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or 48 per cent, were upon points of procedure or other matters not involving the merits of the controversy."

On this same subject, Austin Abbott, of the University Law School, New York, says: "What a boon to our community it would be if the practice of the law could be lifted above the entanglements of half-understood procedure, and if a bar trained in the logic of pleading and the practice of adducing evidence, and a bench, freed from the incessant duty of correcting errors in practice, could devote themselves fully to the free and useful reasoning of the modern American law upon the usages of business and the interests of commerce and society."

LITTLE TRAINING REQUIRED OF LAW STUDENTS.

Since medical colleges made the recent regulations concerning the number of years to be spent in the study of medicine and the number of months constituting one annual session, medical students are required to make fuller preparation and to spend a longer time in the study of their profession than any other class of men, for it must be remembered that many ministers of the gospel do not pursue any preparatory course in theology at all.

On the contrary, law students can obtain admission to the practice of their profession in a shorter time than can students in any other calling-theology, medicine, dentistry, or pharmacy. The course of study too in law schools is much shorter than in any of the other classes. In eight law schools only one year of study is required before graduation. The great majority require only two years, and one or two require three years. While students can graduate in eight law schools after only one year of study, there is not a single school of theology, medicine, dentistry, or pharmacy where a student can receive the full degree in one year, and in most of these schools a course of three years is required. Not only is a longer course of study required in the other classes than in law schools, but the percentage of students graduating is less than in law schools.

Moreover, while the course in law schools is shorter than in any of the others, a large number of law students do not take even that, but depend entirely upon private study and information acquired in a lawyer's office. While there are only about one-third more physicians than lawyers in the United States, there are about three times as many medical students as law students. The number of medical students in 1893-94 was 21,802, but of law students only 7,311.

"It is a maxim sanctioned by long and wide experience, that he who is not a good lawyer when he comes to the bar will seldom be a good one afterwards.' And in order to acquire such thorough acquaintance with the elements of the law, thought is requisite as well as reading; and for the purpose of thought, there must be time to digest as well as industry to acquire. One can not expect to gorge himself with law as a boa constrictor does with masses of food, and then digest it afterwards. The process of assimilation must go on, if it is to proceed healthfully and beneficially, at the same time with the reception of knowledge."

But possibly it is expected that the law student will acquire a large amount of legal information after his admission to practice; that the months spent in waiting for clients shall be utilized in increasing his legal attainments and therefore rigid requirement of educational qualifications should not be demanded before admission to the bar. But as objection was made to medical students engaging in practice while preparing for their profession, it might also be made to law students claiming to give legal advice while admittedly unprepared to do so.

Although a large number of poorly qualified lawyers may obtain little practice, and hence may be continually dropping out into other lines of business, it would

1 Catalogue, law department, University of Virginia.

LAW DEGREES.

There are eight law schools which grant the degree of bachelor of laws after only one year of study. Most of the schools require two years, and a few require three years. Several schools grant the bachelor's degree after completion of the regular course and then offer an additional year of study which entitles to the degree of master of laws. This is done by Cornell, Yale, the four schools at Washington, D. C., the University Law School of New York City, the Michigan and Missouri Universities, and at Dickinson College, Pennsylvania. The New York Law School requires an attendance of four years in order to obtain the degree of master of laws.

The Yale Law School grants the degree of bachelor of laws after two years of study, master of laws after three years, and doctor of civil law after four years of study. The catalogue says: "It is believed that the studies of the undergraduate course and those of the first year of the graduate course cover all the topics which it is desirable for the ordinary law student to examine before admission to the bar; and the fourth year, in which the degree of doctor of civil law is awarded, is recommended only to those who desire to fit themselves to be something more than practicing attorneys."

In the District of Columbia admission to the bar can only be secured after three years' study of law; hence large numbers of students take the course of two years for the degree of bachelor of laws, and then a third year, which both gives the degree of master of laws and allows them to apply for examination for admission to the bar. If it were not for the requirement of three years of study, it is doubtful whether half as many students would take the third year's course.

President Henry Wade Rogers says: "In States where a three years' course of study is prescribed by statute or by rule of court as an essential qualification for admission to the bar, the law schools can readily establish and insist on the same period as a qualification of the bachelor's degree. But when this is not the case the problem becomes more difficult, and the difficulty is enhanced when, in addition to the enbarrassment already alluded to, there happen to be in close proximity other schools conducted according to commercial rather than scholastic standards, and seeking for patronage by shorter terms and lower fees."

There are some law schools which have a course of three years prescribed, and in some cases mainly accepted by the students, but at the same time the privilege is allowed of completing the course in two years. The student can therefore receive the degree of bachelor of laws in two years. These schools are the University of Notre Dame, Indiana (see catalogue of 1893-94, p. 68), University of Maryland (catalogue of 1894, p. 15), Boston University (1893–94, p. 18), Harvard University (1893–94, p. 6), Metropolis Law School (1893-94, p. 12), and Western Reserve University (1893-94, p. 11).

Judging from the wording of the course of instruction in Columbia College Law School (catalogue of 1893-94, p. 152), it seems that students in some cases, with the consent of the faculty, can graduate in two years.

The University of Pennsylvania and Hastings College of the Law (University of California) seem to be, therefore, the only two schools of law requiring under all circumstances three full years of study of law from students with full preliminary training. The catalogue of the University of Pennsylvania says: "Under the statutes of the university, the degree of bachelor of laws is granted to candidates who have attended upon the full course of instruction in the law department, and who have passed satisfactory examinations upon the subjects of instruction." "The full course requires attendance for three years, and is graded. Students of the firstyear class are not permitted to attend the lectures of the second and third year, and students of the second-year class are not permitted to attend the lectures of the third year."

The University of Pennsylvania also has a post-graduate course in l years, completion of which secures the title master of laws.

The University of Michigan has announced that it will require a three years' course of law, beginning with 1895-96. The University of Wisconsin has announced a similar intention.

METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN LAW.

A question of considerable interest at the present time to the law schools is as to the best method of instructing the student in law There are three systems in use. In some law schools instruction is given mainly by lectures; in others it is given mainly by recitations upon lessons previously assigned, together with the usual explanations and comments; and in three schools it is given mainly by the presentation and discussion of leading cases.

The method most generally employed is that of lectures on the different subjects, followed the succeeding day by questions on the previous lecture. The students are also expected to read up the same subjects in their text-books, and there may be occasional examinations.

The method coming next in general use is that of recitations upon lessons assigned in text-books, supplemented by occasional lectures.

In nearly all of the schools there are moot courts, or, perhaps, regular practice courts, in which the students get experience in the actual discharge of the lawyer's work.

An examination of the catalogues of the majority of the schools has been made to ascertain the method of instruction mainly employed, but it should be stated that in nearly all the schools there are supplementary methods adopted, such as reviews, examinations, exercises in drafting contracts, conveyances, pleadings, indictments, and other legal papers, the criticism of briefs, arguments in moot courts, courses of reading, etc.

In 33 schools the instruction is given mainly by lectures; in 24 schools it is given mainly by recitations from text-books. In three schools the discussion and explanation of leading cases is relied upon mainly. These three schools are Harvard University, the Metropolis Law School, and Western Reserve University.

The New York Law School, the Iowa College of Law, and Kent Law School of Chicago are strongly in favor of what they call the Dwight method, in which the use of text-books enters largely; Yale University and the University of Nebraska also favor much the use of text-books.

University of Alabama.-Lectures and text-books.

University of California.—“ All three systems of legal instruction are used, namely, a study of text-books, an examination of illustrative cases, and lectures." University of Colorado.-"While the method of instruction is mainly that of recitations, certain subjects are separately taught by lectures, and the study of leading cases is made an important feature of the work."

Denver Law School.-Text-book instruction, supplemented by study of leading cases, and lectures.

Yale University.-Text-books. "The method of instruction is mainly that of recitations. It is the conviction of the faculty of this department, as well as the tradition of the university, that definite and permanent impressions concerning the principles and rules of any abstract science are best acquired by the study of standard text-books in private, followed by the examinations and explanations of the recitation room. Hence, although certain subjects are separately taught by lectures, either because the want of proper manuals or the constant and rapid advance of learning or economy of time requires the adoption of that method, care is taken that the same topic shall be covered by recitation work in connection with the wider branches of the law to which they belong. Reported cases of special importance as illustrating the development of law into leading branches are also referred to, and many of these are separately printed by the department and distributed for more ready consultation."

Columbian University.--Lectures mainly, followed by “quizzes.”