Berkeley High School - Olla Podrida Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

Page 20 text:

OLLA PODRID A repeated a thousand-fold. The lawyer of limited intellectual powers, thoroughly educated and with untiring industry, makes the great success today. Of course, the question of temperament should not be over- looked. A boy with a distaste for study, but with a natural inventive and mechanical genius, has no place in the legal profession. Do not spoil a good carpenter to make a poor lawyer. There is no profession or line of work where moderate talent, coupled with a thorough education and great industry, will present a more assured future than in the pratcice of the law. It is not, however, a profession of large financial returns. If a boy has the ambition to possess great wealth, he cannot expect to achieve it in any profession, except through some exceptional circumstances, but there are rewards in the prac- tice of the profession of the law, as indicated in the definition of success previously given in this article, which are beyond and above mere dollars and cents. When you realize that life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness are all possible, and only possible because of the great legal bulwarks that have been built against man ' s rapacity and man ' s inhumanity to man ; when you realize that as a lawyer you are one of the elect class set apart in the community to maintain those bul- Avarks ; when you realize that you are one of that great galaxy of constitution makers and expounders, of judges and law- makers that make our Anglo-Saxon world the happy world that it is to live in. then you get some glimpse of the compen- sations which come to the lawyer who is giving his life to the Republic to conserve the best that we have and to reach out for the best there is to be acquired to make more untrammeled and secure that pursuit of life, liberty, property and happiness. BERKELEY HIGH 18

Page 19 text:

OLLA PODRIDA BERKELEY HIGH causes and reasons why this is so, I believe the most powerful reason would be found to be the lack of proper preparatory education. Up to a certain point in the practice of the law, this lack of a thorough early education does not become so apparent, but when the test comes, requiring well developed reasoning powers, broad acquaintance with all intellectual effort and a confidence born of that knowledge which is power, the man with the broad foundation of a thorough early educa- tion has a great advantage. I do not mean to underrate self-made men. The rare in- stances of truly self-made men simply prove the rule for which I am contending ; that is to say, a burning ambition to acquire knowledge, coupled with indefatigable industry, will light the lamp of genius in any branch of intellectual effort. Such men become notable successes in the law as elsewhere. But taking the average man, if the mind can be built on the basis of a thorough collegiate education, it advances to the study of the law with a developed intellectual power that, except in the rare instances mentioned, will not come otherwise. In addition to a thorough collegiate preparation for the study of law, I recommend strongly one or two years actual business experience. I would let this experience follow the collegiate degree and precede the study of law. The modern practice of the law has been well termed a technical business, rather than, as in former times, a pure profession. The time was when a lawyer was engaged in expounding constitutional questions, pleading special causes of great moment involving the art of forensic oratory and the elucidation of purely legal questions. Today, the overwhelming proportion of the work of a successful practitioner is in furnishing technical advice on great corporate, transportation, mercantile and industrial questions. To properly understand and cope with that portion of such questions as comes within the lawyer ' s province, a practical working knowledge of business methods is in the highest degree important and useful. Another most important prerequisite for a successful law- yer is the capacity for continued and untiring industry. In the modern practiec of law, brilliant and special gifts play small part, and it is the old fable of the hare and the tortoise 17

Page 21 text:

ZATION rorum In the last edition of the Olla Podrida the Forum stated that it had reorganized under the old constitution. Since that time the members of the organization have found that manu- script insufficient for their needs, and consequently the debat- ing society has drawn up and adopted a new constitution, with accompanying by-laws. The constitution contains only one radical change : Hereafter the membership list will be limited to twenty-five. Also, there will only be honorary and active members, as opposed to honorary, associate and active members before. The purpose of these two provisions is to keep out that element in the school which always creates dis- turbances in societies of this nature ; and, if we can, make a membership list which is thoroughly active. On September 16 the tryouts for the debating team took place. Seven students took part, with the result that Percy Neal, Harry Dobbs and Eugene Sturgis made the team, with Stanley Arndt as alternate. Mr. Cooper, Miss Maxwell and Mr. Danforth officiated in the capacity of judges. Chess Club Ever since the beginning of the term a number of the stu- dents have been desirous of forming a chess club. In view of this fact, a number of them, ably assisted by Mr. Danforth and Miss Maxwell, organized the B. H. S. Chess Club on Sep- 19