Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 10.djvu/190

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164
HARVARD LAW REVIEW.

at which the questions raised by the papers presented are learnedly discussed. The discussions are always of the greatest interest on account of the learning and the character of the speakers who take part in them. The first general meeting is always devoted, at least at the beginning, to an address by the President, and to the report of the Treasurer. The proceedings include also, when occasion arises, the re-election of the officers of the Society and the members of the Executive Council. The discussions, as we have already said, are never followed by any vote. To stimulate the work of the members and to guard against any want of initiative, the Society often suggests for investigation certain questions of special interest. Thus at the present time the Society is completing the publication of a series of essays treating of the organization of the bar in all countries, and it has recently proposed as a subject, The Legal Control and Management of Non-business Associations in the Legislation of Different Countries.

A library, comprising more than ten thousand volumes, and composed, for the most part, of works on foreign law, is established at the headquarters of the Society, and furnishes its members with useful material for work. This library is open to persons not belonging to the Society, by permission of the General Secretary.


IV.

Works Published by the Society.

I. Bulletin.—The Society of Comparative Legislation has published since its foundation a monthly bulletin. In this bulletin are printed the essays on questions of foreign law, of comparative law and international law read at the general meetings, as well as the report of the discussions raised by these essays. This bulletin contains, besides more extensive papers on comparative legislation, a legislative chronicle of the principal foreign legislative assemblies, and a thorough review of works presented to the Society and distributed by each of the sections to its members. Finally, the bulletin brings to the knowledge of the members of the Society all the facts of internal organization likely to interest them (list and addresses of the French and foreign members; reports of the meetings of sections and the like). A full table of contents ends the December number; the bulletin makes a good-sized volume annually.