The Shortcomings of the Case Method the diligent preparation of his cases by the student ought to obviate some of this danger; but it does not, I am con vinced, avoid it altogether." This criticism is in substance that teaching by oral discussion does not work advantageously in large classes, but calls for a small body of selected students, similar to the seminars in graduate departments of our universi ties. The remedy Professor Moore him self suggests, and one does not have to look far for it, for it is hardly external to the case system. "In some cases instructors recognize the position by a short expository address, either at the beginning or at the close of the class, of which the students take diligent notes. It seems to me likely that this practice will grow, and that the result will be a system which combines the case method with expository lectures." Professor Moore points out that the efficiency of the case system, in the opinion of its advocates, rests on cer tain assumptions. These are: (1) a certain maturity on the part of students, as when they are required to be A. B. degree holders; (2) a sufficiently large staff to handle a law course broken up into numerous special topics; and (3) a course allowing a sufficient amplitude of time both to the student and to the instructor. He questions whether the case method of instruction is well-balanced; whether it does not throw its weight too greatly on one side. "It seems to me that, in the familiar academic contest of Method in Teaching and 'Learning to Learn' v. Imparting Knowledge, the first is rather over-emphasized in the case system, and I was very much disposed to agree with suggestions that the advantages which the case method admittedly has could be sufficiently secured by its ex clusive adoption in one or two subjects
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— one, at least, should be in the first year — and that the rest of the course might be pursued with a more liberal use of the text-book and the expository lecture." A more serious criticism, however, is that which gathers momentum from such declarations as that of the Colum bia Law School teacher who was emphatic in assuring Professor Moore that the case system tends to accentuate the evil of a political bias which carries the student far from the current views of the day, unless such a tendency is corrected. "The correction that was attempted at Columbia was to link as closely as pos sible the study of the law with political science, and particularly to encourage the pursuit of economic and sociological studies by those who are intending to practise or to teach law." The Australian critic's views on this phase of the subject are interesting and timely. "We know on good author ity," he says, "that debate makes a ready man, and that the legal method of detail makes men cut deep. But we know also that it has not the tendency in the same degree to make them take broad views. Now, it seems to me that a system of education resting exclu sively upon the study of cases tends to exaggerate the logical side of the law, to consider it too exclusively on its formal side, to over-emphasize the con sistency and harmony of the law. These are dangers to which the lawyer is prone, and which, time and again, have mani fested themselves in history. As pro fessional thought is one of the principal factors in legal development, this stamps itself upon the law, with the result that the law may become less and less an instrument for accomplishing present social ends, and more and more an insti tution to the needs of which social ends themselves must be adapted. . . . Law
