[I.] ANNUAL ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT SAMUEL F. HUNT. Gentlemen of the State Bar Association: It is a source of special gratification to welcome the brethren of the profession after the lapse of another year to these waters, made historic by the victory of American arms, and to these islands whose luxuriant foliage and refreshing breezes invite from the strife of protracted and vexatious litigation, to friendly personal intercourse, and the exchange of fraternal greetings. The classics called poetry and music and art the humanities, because they brought no war and no sorrow, but advanced in the name of pleasure and peace. We set out at this annual gathering in the name of the amenities, because we meet as members of a common profession whose supreme purpose is to advance enlightened jurisprudence, and at the same time to develop the true spirit of fraternity by the closer union of those who believe in strengthening the foundations of justice and in the best method of its administration. Fortunately, the very calling of the law avoids the intolerant spirit. Neither sect nor party dare intrude in this presence. We forget the disturbing elements of contending schools and the zeal of a fervid partisanship in the spirit of a generous magnanimity, because the real lawyer never forgets that the golden rule underlies all public and private justice. There is nothing more universal than human ignorance; there should be nothing more universal than human charity. Nor does he forget the spirit of humility, but with Sir Isaac Newton, laments that he has only picked up a few shells on the great seashore. Egotism becomes intolerance when it proceeds upon the assumption that the ideal has been reached, for when the whole horizon of history is measured, there will be noticed a wonderful death of the small and a wonderful resurrection of the great. It is the history of the profession that it discards selfish motives and petty things, and only looks to those overwhelming truths of virtue and character on which the fabric of society must rest. It realizes, too, that there are laws of human action so lofty that they bring their own reward. In this spirit, then, we assemble for the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Ohio State Bar Association, and it is to be hoped that when distance shall separate and years intervene, there will be found in the recollection of these things something of the same feeling which inspired Horace in his Lyrics, to so touchingly refer to the genial fellowship of other days. THE GROWING INFLUENCE OF THE ASSOCIATION. It was certainly the purpose of those who conceived this Association to form an organization of the profession throughout the State which should thoroughly and efficiently embody and develop its corporate life and spirit. It has become the center of a growing professional interest, and has already proven to be a useful and efficient agency of improvement and reform in the direction of facilitating the administration of justice and in cultivating cordial intercourse among the members of the Bar. This alliance among the profession from all parts of the State must give force and unity to any recommendation looking to a reform in the proceedings before the courts. We are, indeed, alone commissioned by the commonwealth to appear in the tribunals established by law and vindicate the rights of liberty and property, and to that end are servants of the very highest order for the promotion of the public welfare. There is much to admire in this respect in the English Bar. One who honored the calling in this country and enriched its literature has said: "The Bar of England, that most illustrious body of well-trained men. who have wrought so usefully and conspicuously in the gradual construction of the best civilization of the age, whose traditions we follow, whose language we speak, whose system of jurisprudence we administer, whose precedents are our authorities, is to-day the survivor of the mediæval guilds that retain, untouched by the chances and changes of time, its ancient and original privileges, chiefly the right of admitting and excluding from its own membership. No one can be admitted to practice law in England except by the Bar of England. Its homes and schools are still, as for hundreds of years they have been, in the beautiful temple by the Thames, the ancient seat of Christian Knights, whose spirit of chivalry and charity and justice to the poor and weak still inspires the locality and survives the tournaments and jousts and peaceful strifes and contests of high-minded lawyers, honorably maintaining the opposing sides, but nevertheless fighting in the same great cause of civil justice under a common banner." The spirit of association must stimulate and animate, so that it is but the history of centuries that every great principle of civil justice has taken the form of legislative action, through the efforts of a united and intelligent body of the earnest students and thinkers in the law, and has been buttressed in human society by the decrees and judgments of a just and fearless bench. THE LATE RUFUS P. RANNEY. Since our separation last year, Rufus P. Ranney, the first president of the State Bar Association, has passed from life to death. He left us December, 6, 1891, at his home on Euclid Avenue, in the city of Cleveland, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He was a member of the convention which framed the present constitu |