Harvard Law School - Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

Page 29 text:

I231

Page 28 text:

In the statutes governing the Royall professorship it is provided that the professor shall deliver not less than Hftcen lectures each year, that only the Hsenior class among the undergraduatesf' oflicers of the University, and resident graduates may attend the lectures gratis, but the professor may admit others, not resident at the College, on such terms as he may think proper. In his lectures the Professor was to uexhibit the theory of law in its most comprehensive senscg the principles and practical operation of the Constitution and government of the United States and this Cornmonwealthg a history of the jurisprudence of this state under the colonial and provincial as well as under the present govcrnmcntg an explanation of the principles of the common law of England, the mode of its introduction into this country, the sources and reasons of its obligation thereing also its various modi- Hcations by usage, judicial decision and statuteg and generally those topics connected with law as a science which will best lead the minds of the students to such inquiries and researches as will qualify them to become useful and distinguished supporters of our free systems of government as well as able and honorable advocates of the rights of the citizens. This is truly an ambitious project for a course of fifteen lectures. But it shows that Chief Justice Parker had two ideas in mind. On the one hand, he w'ished to give to those who were entering upon the study of law some- thing in the way of foundation and direction of their interests toward scientific thinking which they were not likely to get in a law ollicc, and, on the other hand, he sought to give to advanced students not preparing for the law and to the cultivated laity some idea of the law under which they lived. Thus far he was keeping to the Blackstonian model. A year later he seems to have felt that the University could do more for the law than merely provide such lectures as he had outlined. The school at Litchfield was being copied, as Blackstoneis chair had been. Why not combine the two in an academic law school? Such was, in effect, the project he submitted to the corpo- ration in May, 1817. Chief Justice Parker begins by saying his opinion as to what should be done is concurred in by friends of the University whom he has consulted. He asserts that the prevailing mode of legal education is necessarily defective, as it is obtained principally in the ollices of eminent practitioners, who are unable from their constant application to business to act the part of instructorsfi Hence he proposes a school uunder the immediate care of a learned lawyer w'hose attention would he principally directed to the instruction of his pupils. He then suggests seven points to be voted by the corporation ttwo more in the draft are crossed outj as follows: 1. That some ucounsellor learned in the lawn should be elected University Pro- fessor of Law and uopen and keep a school for the instruction of graduates of this or any other university and of such others as according to the rules of admission to practice as attorneys may be admitted after tive years of study in the ollice of a counsellor. 2. That the University Professor, with the advice of the Royall Professor, should I22l

Page 30 text:

prescribe a course of study, examine and confer with students, deliver to them at least two lectures a week, and generally act the part of tutor to them. 4. That there shall be a tuition charge of 35100 a year, which His the average price of education in the country. 6. That the degree of Bachelor of Laws be conferred on students who have at- tended at least eighteen months at the school and 'cpassed the residue of their novitiate in the office of some counsellorn of the highest court, or shall have remained three years in the school. 7. That the law students shall be admitted to use the college library and that 'ia complete law libraryi' be uobtained as soon as may be. 8. That the law students be permitted to board in the commons on the same terms as undergraduates and that lodging rooms shall be provided for them at a reasonable compensation. 9. That the law students have the privilege of attending the public lectures of the University free of expense. As things were in 1817, this was an exceptionally enlightened and forward looking program. To unite the two types of training, by University lectures and by reading under the guidance of a practitioner, in one institution as part of a University, was a great step forward, and before the century was over had resulted in a charac- teristically American type of legal education. When Chief Justice Parker drew up his project the task of legal education was relatively simple. The chief work of the lawyer was in the trial of causes in the courts. It was enough for the lawyer to know the local procedure and be able to move juries. There was little require- ment of anything which a law school could do better than a law ollice. But Chief Justice Parker in his project for the lectures as Royall Professor had shown the year before that he was conscious that more w'as to be demanded of the lawyer in a land where the polity was so thoroughly legal. It was not till Judge Story came to the school as Dane Professor in 1829 that the ideas in Chief Justice Parker's project began to bear fruit. But in the twelve years of the Stearns's regime a real advance had been made over the Litchheld type of school. As has been said, the latter was an expanded law oflice. Students read such books as were at hand and copied pleadings and conveyances as apprentices did in the office of a practitioner. The only advance over the ordinary office was that in the place of occasional conferences between preceptor and student the teachers dictated lectures, since the era of the great American text writers was not to come for a generation. Stearns added moots after the manner of the lnns of Court, and there were also the lectures of the Royall Professor. In its possibilities, the school set up in 1817 pursuant to Chief Justice Parker's project was much more, and it became much more. Combining the apprentice type of professional training, which obtained in England, with the Continental idea of academic law teaching, it was the first University law' school in the common-law world. For a common-law judge to work out a plan departing so completely from the English practice argues an exceptionally open mind and vision of what in the development of the country was to be the need of the profession. ROSCOE POUND i241