Legacy
anything which is handed or passed down from an ancestor or predecessor. chief forms: education in the office of an the practice of the law. It takes on two or passed down from an ancestor or pre- LEGAL EDUCATION, education for the practice of the law. It takes on two in a law school. The first method is by far the older, and is still continued; the second is rapidly coming to prevail, and ject to the disadvantages of disorderli is greatly superior. The first is largely superficiality in result. The second repthe method of the apprentice; and is subearlier method little need be said: the ness in form, narrowness in content, and method, -legal education through the law school. means, and results. Of the first and educational conditions, ways, present article is devoted to the second earlier method little need be said: the means, and results. Of the first and in the historic year of 1784. Its founder was the able lawyer and outstanding jurist of his time, Tapping Reeve. It In point of time the earliest American law school was established in the little maintained a high record for thirty-five part of St. Martin het. Eustatius, Saba, and to Holland; and the the United States. to Great Britain in one federal colof the five presi- Barbuda and Kitts and inica, and the rd Islands cative governexecutive, and though each of government of constitution. t. John, Antigua. are sugar and OSEPH SHERIDAN an Irish journal- Dublin, Ireland, graduated from joined (1837) iversity Magsand proprietor. the Irish ballads, and "Shamus Irish novelista larity to Charles Churchyard" (1864): "Guy Davily (1872).
Feb. 7, 1873. ing which is handed an ancestor or pre- CON, education for w. It takes on two in the office of an er; and education first method is by ill continued; the g to prevail, and tree; and is subes of disorderli in content, and The second rep onditions, ways, the first and be said: the to the second rough the law est Americaz in the little Connecticut, Ite founder thirty-five ded Western Jaiversi ar the S ed schools.
The Report sioner of and twen the of th ar con -half the women, n s for 1917 is the of stu the law is who enter LEGAL EDUCATION years, and educated about thirty men each year.
The second school was established in 1817, at Harvard University; and in its integral association with a university represents the method generally obtaining in making a law school a part of a university foundation. The more famous of the schools, subsequently founded , are that of Yale in 1843, that of the University of Pennsylvania in 1852, and , in or about 1859, the three schools of the University of Michigan, of Columbia University, and of Northwestern University (originally founded as the Union Law School of Chicago), and, in or about 1892, the schools of Western Reserve University and of the University of Chicago. From year to year the State Universities have established schools. There are now registered in the Reports of the United States Commissioner of Education hundred and twenty-four one schools, with an annual attendance of 22,880 students. These figures are based on statistics given in the report of the United States Commissioner of Education, issued 1917. Figures in the latest report, 1918, affected by war conditions , were a little over onehalf the previous year. One hundred law schools in the United States reported an attendance of 10,998 men and 820 women, making a total of 11,818 students for 1917-1918.
Admission to the schools represents a wide variety of standards. In a few schools evidence of the possession of a good moral character is the chief condition. In the better schools graduation from a good high school is required. In a few schools and as a consequent generally regarded as the best either two , or three, or four, years of study in a college of liberal learning, are requisite for admission. The present tendency is toward an increase in the requirements .
The course of study in the schools, usually covering three years, includes such fundamental and primary subjects as contracts, criminal law, torts , property , agency, equity, evidence, insurance, public utilities, trusts, damages, law of persons, conflict of laws, constitutional law, constitutional law , corporations, partnerships, bankruptcy, quasi-contracts, jurisprudence, administrative law, history of the common law, patent law, and professional ethics. In certain schools, as Harvard, the special laws or procedure in several of the individual commonwealths is considered. considered .
The variety of subjects of the course of study increases, as laws increase in number, and as society becomes more complex. The profession of the law is a practical profession. Those who enter upon the LEGAL EDUCATION study of it as a science, do so in order to use it as an art. They learn law in order to practice it. But the right to practice it, the individual State or Commonwealth controls within its own territory. The standards which the different States set up for the exercise of this right manifest a variety from the "possessing of a good moral character" to the passing of a hard and prolonged examination in the science of the law itself. Such an examination is commonly, and to a certain degree always in the charge of either the Supreme Court or the Bar Association of the State.
Of the great names in the history of the law schools in the last halfcentury the name of Christopher Columbus Longdell is the most illustrious. Called from the New York bar to the Harvard Law School in 1870 by President Eliot -in the early years of his great executive career-Longdell inaugurated what has since become known as the case system of teaching and of learning law. The case system represents the study of the law from cases, or decisions, as reported in the official records of the courts. It is the inductive system. It reaches general principles from specific instances or instances facts. The previous method was rather deductive, beginning with general principles. It might also be called the laboratory method. It has obtained wide currency. It has been subjected to certain changes; but the essential elements of the system are still maintained both at Harvard and other leading schools . or As has been said, legal education prepares for a practical profession. The schools have neither made nor sought to make, as a rule, jurists. The philosophical aspects of the science have made only a slight appeal to students. Perhaps the nearer approach to the philosophical relationship lies in the courses on the constitution of the United States-courses which the best schools give. Research occupies a very insignificant place in the legal curriculum; but many teachers do recognize that the opportunity for the philosophic study of the law is commanding or even obligatory. At the present time the public influence of the study of the law and of the members of the profession is of peculiar interest. In the political judgments lawyers as a class are conservative . They recognize the rights of persons and of property, inherited from a long historic tradition. By comparative reasoning they also recognize the duties which both persons and property represent. In a . In a time, therefore, of social stress and storm, of radicalism in thought, speech and act, they can be relied upon as ord ch the different haracter to the changed examin the charge bort or the Bar the history of et half-century Columbus Long- Hervard Law cat executive ated what has law. The case dy of the law reaches general general princiled the laboracted to carrtain at Glements of lained both at schools. education prehiтеes-courses Research ant place in the my teacherd do ublic Influence id of the mem udements law ervative. They a long histori ve reasonin ies which bot al stress an hought, spee relied upon hold the Rom eat me De 2,00 the divi to rene Con the ost og it two id. of first an onicar at to en of a S tives. are tho LE GALLIENNE stabilizing forces which will help to hold together the constituent elements of the community of the state. In his great work, "Democracy in America," De pointed out the fact that the legal profession was a counterpoise to the radicalism of democracy. In conserving such results the American system f legal education, therefore, occupies the highest place. Legal education, as conducted in the law school, represents one of the most important ant contributions made by America to modern civilization. Such a recognition is commonly accredited to it throughout the English-speaking world.