Legal Education. fession, and not merely the notions of a single mind.1 The Committee began their labors of the past year by sending to the Chief-Justice of every State a circular inquiring (1) Whether the law of their State required students to read for any specified time prior to applying for admission to the Bar? (2) Whether a period of study should be fixed by law, and what period is suggested? (3) Whether in their States the inferior courts had power to admit to the bar? (4) Whether they thought it desirable to take from the inferior courts the power to admit to the bar, and lodge it in the courts of last resort, to the end that there might be a uniform standard governing the examination of candidates? (5) Whether they thought advisable the ap pointment of a commission to hold office for a term of three years, one third to retire each year, the commission to sit at stated times and convenient places for the examination of candidates? Thirty-five of the Chief-Justices responded to these questions, and their answers as abridged in the report give an interesting rfsniiu? of the law of as many States on this subject, with not a few valuable and often characteristic comments by the high authori ties appealed to. This part of the report 1 The report of 1891 is signed by four members of the Committee, the fifth, Mr. Ashton, being in Europe and having taken no part thus far in the work. Of the four, the chairman, W. G. Hammond, is Dean of the St. Louis Law School, and has for twenty-five years devoted his time to the study and teaching of law in that position or his former one, at the head of the Iowa State Law School. The second, Henry Wade Rogers, now Presi dent of the Northwestern University, which has as its law department the Chicago school formerly known as the Union College of Law, was for some years dean of the largest law school in the country, that of Michigan Uni versity, at Ann Arbor. Mr. George M. Sharp, whose name is next of the signatures, is a lawyer in active practice at Baltimore (the present Republican nominee for the Attor ney Generalship of that State), as well as a lecturer in the Law School of Yale University. The fourth, Mr. George O. Shattuck of Boston, is perhaps the most widely known to the lawyers of the country by his eminent position at the bar of that city, but is also thoroughly familiar with the subject of legal education from his long experience as one of the Overseers of Harvard University. 67
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cannot well be abridged, and is too long for quotation, occupying as it does twelve pages of the printed report. We can only quote the passage in which the Committee express their sense of the importance of these regu lations as to the mode of admission to the bar, in their effect, on the standard of legal education. .• It will be seen that a large majority favor both the changes proposed in our preliminary report of last year with respect to the mode of admission to the bar, the vesting of this power exclusively in the highest court of the State, and the provision for a permanent board or a commission of examination, so arranged that only one half or one third of the members are changed at once, and composed of lawyers of the highest professional character and learning. "There are, indeed, some dissents, especially from the latter proposal, as a needless multiplica tion of offices, etc. The reason for which the Com mittee first suggested this plan still seems to them so strong as to make it of almost equal importance with the concentration of the power to admit in the Supreme Court. It cannot be expected that such a court will perform the entire labor; only by such a permanent commission can a high and uniform grade of requirements for admission be maintained. Uniformity is equal justice to all candidates, and this becomes of more and more importance as the standard of qualification is improved. But it is also an indispensable prerequisite of that improve ment in methods of instruction which all agree to be needed. Without a thorough, well-considered examination upon principles (that is, upon ele mentary law, and the science of jurisprudence, the basis of all legal thinking and legal judgment), it will be almost impossible to carry out the best dev ised reforms in the instruction of law students. Every instnictor, whether in a school or in an office, knows how difficult it is to get the majority of students to give thoughtful attention and time to any topic on which they anticipate no examination for admis sion. It is not merely those who 'cram ' or those who have 110 conception of the scope and extent of a true legal education who are so affected. The ambitious and the idle are alike influenced by this ' fearful looking for of an examination to come ' which makes them eager to apply all their energies,
