Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/432

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Law Department of the State University of Iowa.
389

questions of this kind, which he will be called upon to meet in managing cases.

Students frequently desire to take a few collegiate studies in connection with their law course, and though this is practicable to but a limited extent on account of time, yet it may, in some cases, be reasonably permitted. Students of the law department are allowed to take, without extra charge, any studies in the collegiate department which the Faculty think will not seriously interfere with their legitimate work. On the other hand, collegiate seniors are allowed to take one study for one term in the law department as an elective in their collegiate course, but the time of such study cannot be afterward counted in a law course. These reciprocal arrangements foster the feeling, which is beneficial in many ways,—that they are all members of a university of learning, and that the fields of knowledge are wide and their riches inexhaustible,—and serve perhaps to some extent to keep alive in a too practical age a love of learning, which in a less enlightened era drew students in thousands to famous universities in Europe. But aside from any question, of sentiment, the law student who pursues his studies in a university, has many advantages growing out of his surroundings, one of the most evident of which is the access to a general library.

EMLIN MCCLAIN.

In providing instruction in a law school, the question may arise whether it is better to have resident professors whose business shall be teaching, or to have specialists in each subject, who give to the school only the time necessary to present their particular topics. There is an interest to students in seeing and hearing a man eminent in the profession,—bringing with him from the outside the aroma of high achievements in real life,—which a man whose sole business is to deal with students, can hardly awaken. But in the end it is success in teaching which will establish a teacher's standing with his scholars, and the tendency here has been to concentrate the greater part of the work of instruction in men who make that their business. Three resident professors give their entire time to the School, and apportion among themselves the greater part of the work, especially that requiring continuous attention.

The difficulty in all professional schools seems to be that there is no body of men having any special training in teaching from which instructors can be drawn. The schools themselves prepare for practice, not for teaching, and it is only by chance that any special fitness for instruction is developed. Moreover, it would probably not be wise to have the instruction, to any considerable extent, in the hands of men without practical experience. While there is much more prejudice than truth in the criticism of the work of men who devote their sole time to teaching as being merely theoretical, yet it is doubtless a fact that a man who has never himself actually practised law, does not always fully realize and meet the difficulties which will arise in practice.