104
The Green Bag
Ron. Clement B. Penroae of Philadelphia, regarded by many as Pennsylvania's ablest judge: The idea of the American Corpus juris, as set forth in your very instructive Memoran dum, is magnificent, and if it can be carried
0ut—though the task is more than Herculean, the benefit would be incalculable. Mr. Carter’s views, as you state them, ex press with the greatest clearness all that I could say on the subject. Hon. George M. Dallas, United States Cir cuit judge, retired, and emeritus Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania: To give complete expression to my thoughts upon such a subject would be to write too much, and I cannot briefly say what I would in any better way than by asking leave to adopt as my own the short but suflicient note of judge Penrose. The work of Mr. Carter, quoted in your Memorandum, and referred to by Judge Pen rose, has been twice read by me, and, through out, is full of suggestive matter.
James Barr Arne“, late Dean of the Har
'Uafd Law School :—~ The bulk of the work will have to be done,
as the lion's share of the work of preparing the German Civil Code was done,by professors. Our law schools are too young to have de veloped yet a large class of professors making the scientific study of law their career. Personally, I could give very little time to the development of a Corpus juris such as you have in mind. I have not many years for work and have several jobs to do. I do not want to hold aloof, however, and if you
get definite assurance of the necessary funds for the payment of the large staff of col laborators, and if the Board of Editors when chosen seem to me to be men of the right sort and likely to put the thing through, I should be willing to go on the Advisory Board, assum ing that my strength permitted. Professor George W. Kirchwey, Dean of the Law School of Columbia University, Chairman of the Section of Legal Education of the American Bar Association, 1902-03, and former President of the Association of Amer ican Law Schools :— "See also further quotations from the revered Dean Ames, at p. 72 of the Memorandum, supra.
I am deeply interested in the project which you and Mr. Andrews have formed of giving to the world a complete systematic statement of the law of the land. It would be difiicult to exaggerate the importance of such a work to the Bench and Bar and, indeed, to our country and its institutions. The plan stirs my imag ination as a contribution, perhaps the greatest single contribution that could be made, to the great work of reducing the chaos of our compli cated American jurisprudence to something like order and unity. If, as your plan contem plates, the treatise shall represent the finest legal scholarship and the best professional ex perience of our country (and I can see no reason why you should not be able to com mand both for such a project),it will un
doubtedly be eagerly welcomed by the pro fession and take its place as a notable achievement of the American bar. I shall be glad to contribute, in every way possible, to the success of the enterprise. Hon. Frank Irvine, Dean of the Law School of Cornell University: I have examined with some care your plan for a Corpus juris. There cannot be the slightest doubt that such a work well carried out would be the greatest contribution ever made to our law. While of inestimable value to the profession, its chief advantage would accrue to the people as a whole, who sufier more than any except lawyers realize from the present enormous volume and confused state of the precedents from which the law in a given case must be developed. The undertaking is colossal and beset by difficulties.
On the one hand, the work must
be authoritative. Comparatively little good would be accomplished by a mere comprehen sive treatise on the law, which would relegate us to the same study of old cases as the only real authority. The work should solve the problem so long confronting us and arising out of the enormous and indeed appalling growth of the reports. We cannot hope for any work which would enable us to throw on the junk pile the thousands of accumulated volumes, but we may reasonably hope for a work which will render a resort to them rarely necessary, and when necessary at all chiefly for historical purposes. On the other hand, legislative codification leads us into a new and inner maze without getting us out of the old one. The authority must be de~ rived not from legislative fiat but from the character of the work itself.
