Harvard Law School - Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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amenity with which he treats them and their faults. lt is told that on a wintry morning, as he stamped off the snow on entering the classroom, he said, Gentle- men, this is one of the days when 1 would rather facit per alium than facit per sef, lf this seems less than uproarious-we repeat, look into the countenance of that portrait, imagine him saying it, and we think you will warm to this man. Simon Greenleaf came from Portland, Maine but had the firm-set mouth, long nose and small, canny eyes which, since the Coolidge administration, have been considered typical of Vermonters. He was Story's full-time partner in the administration of the school. Greenleaf on Evidence was the first of the full- scale 'treatises to come out of the faculty. lt ran through sixteen editions, the last by Wig111o1'e in 1899, and was superseded only hy W'igmore's own treatise in 1904. Eight students attended Story's first lecture. One hundred and thirty bade Greenleaf good-bye. The steady upward progress of numbers seems to have reflected a similar development in the repute of the school. The 1ncubator-of- Greatness aspect began to appear. Charles Sumner, Richard Henry Dana, William M. Evarts, a11d James Russell Lowell all sat at Storyls feet. The school also produced Rutherford B. Hayes, who, if not the greatest president, was still a president. PARKER, PARSONS AND WASHBURN C1848-18701 .loel Parker resigned as Chief .lustice of New Hampshire to become Story's successor. It had been said of him by a member of the New Hampshire bar, 'sludge Parker can afford to be obstinate better than most men, for he is almost always right. He was none too happy in Cambridge. Langdell and Holmes both found him inspiring, but the rank and tile took a different view. Said one of l2llCl11Z l HHe was precise, minute and involved to the point of obscurity. If a single step of his logic was lost by the listener, farewell to all hope of following to the conclusion. He could no more give a comprehensive view of a whole 'topic than an oyster, busy in perfecting its single pearl, can range over the ocean floor. Vlfhilc at the outset Parker would gladly have gone back to New Hampshire, on his hands and knees if necessary, he seems later to have effected a rapproche- ment with the life of the school without yielding his intellectual austerity. Theophilus Parsons, a portly man of ruddy cheeks and merry eye, had the power of reaching students' minds. uOf all the professors, the most valuable to me, said .loseph H. Choate. Parsons on Contracts was the second of the great treatises, remaining current through nine editions, the last in 1904. Emory lvashburn had been the leading practitioner in W01'CCSIC1' County and then Governor of Massachusetts, he was appointed to the faculty at the age of fifty-five. He was one of the earliest students H8201 of Asahel Stearns, yet he is linked to the present by having instructed, in his last year, Louis D. Brandeis. Five years after he came to the school Wlashburn on Real Property took its place beside Greenleaf and Parsons. It too remained current well into the twentieth century. He was a distinguished lecturer, noted for his genial courtesy. His portrait, also in the Langdell Lobby, shows how a professor of property should look. During these years a great academic issue came to a head: Should all who resided at Cambridge for a year and paid their tuition he given a degree, as heretofore, or should examinations be instituted with a view to measuring performance but also with the necessary by-product of academic casualties? The American Law Review took one side of this controversy: 13

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we SUQH 90:5 of file ,NQPUQFJ olllfllfll Scdoof By W. Barton Leach and Robert A. Hendrickson Our lips shall tell it to ou.r's0ns, And they in turn to tlzeirsf' N May 26, 1778, when Isaac Royall executed his will, there was no law school in North America and no professorship of law in any of the several American colleges. The apprentice system was the pathway to the profession. Royall was a wealthy citizen of Massachusetts resident in London, which he had reached via Halifax, a circumstance that called for explanation in the years immediately following Paul Reverels ride. But Royall always maintained that he was not a Tory refugee. Partly, doubtless, to prove his point he left to Harvard College the proceeds of sale of two thousand acres to establish a Professor of Laws or a Professor of Physicic and Anatomy. The money value of this gift can be judged from the fact that after thirty-live years of accumu- lation the principal stood at about 358,000 Royall died in 1781. For reasons not entirely clear, his gift was not used until 1816. Meanwhile professorships of law had been established in at least three other colleges, the most noteworthy being at Columbia where the chair was held by James Kent, later Chancellor of New York. Also, during this interval, Judge Tapping Reeve established a law school at Litchfield, Connecticut. So Harvard had neither the first professorsliip of law nor the first law school. But, as will appear, she had the first university law school and, since the Litchfield Law School died young, she has the oldest law school still operating. If it matters. ISAAC PARKER AND' STEARNS fl816-18295 - When the Overseers decided in favor of a uljrofessor of Laws, Isaac Parker, Chief Justice of lVlassaehusetts, received the appointment. 1-le gave occasional lectures to undergraduates and a few Boston lawyers. There were no profes- sional students. On Parkeris recommendation the College in 1817 voted to appoint a uUniver- sity Professor of Law, who shall reside in Cambridge, and open and keep a school, which should he ua new department at the University. Asahel Stearns was appointed, moved to Cambridge, and set up shop in three rooms of a two- story brick building on the present site of the Harvard Trust Company. The phrase 'fset up shop is used advisedly since the University Professor was to be paid by the fees of his students. Looking at the portraits of Parker and Stearns one would not expect them to have been great teachers. And in truth and in fact they were not. Parker's resignation was requested in 1827 and Stearns' in 1829. STORY AND GREENLEAF C1829-18485 As John lVlarshall gave spiritual birth to the Supreme Court years after it had come into being as an institution, so Joseph Story gave spiritual birth to the Harvard Law School. If there ever was an inspired countenance Story had it. We recommend that you spend three minutes before his portrait in the Reception Lobby of Langdell Hall. Story lectured and wrote his books-Baihnents, Agency, Partnership, Equity Jurisprudence, Equity Pleading, and others-but could serve only during recesses of thc Supreme Court of the United States of which he continued to be an Associate Justice. Said Charles Sumner, ulclis students love him, the good scholars for the knowledge he distributes, the poor tif any there bel for the 12

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For a long time tl1e condition of the Harvard Law School has been almost a disgrace to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. A school which undertook to confer degrees without any preliminary examina- tion whatever was doing something every year to injure the profession throughout the country and to discourage real students. So long as the possession of a degree signified nothing except a residence for a certain period in Cambridge or Boston, it was without value. The opposing view, for which proponents are still occasionally found, was supported upon the following policy considerations by the President of Harvard College in his Report to the Overseers: 'gThe1'e is a growing tendency which is to be deprecated-that of making a student's continued membership of College contingent on his annual examinations. In the judgment of the undersigned, every student who maintains a blameless moral character, attends College exercises regularly, and is not culpably negligent in the preparation of his lessons from day to day, should be permitted to remain undisgraced and unmo- lestcd. There are many cases in which there coexists with an average capacity of liberal culture an irremediable deficiency as to the memory of words and details. The undersigned believes that it is of positive benefit to a college class to have a certain proportion of members of the kind under discussion. Their defect of memory will always keep them near the foot of the class, and by occupying that position they sustain the self-respect and ambition of those next above them. LANGDELL 11870-18955 Wlien, in 1851, President Eliot was a junior in college, he heard the law talk of Christopher Columbus Langdell, then a student helping Parsons with his treatise on Contracts, and was convinced that he was listening to a man of genius. ln 1870, acting upon that early impression, he asked Langdell to leave his New York law practice and become the first Dean of the school. Witliin one year Langdell was using the advance sheets of his Cases on Contracts and substituting the Socratic for the Pump-and-Bucket method, Most of the students thought the new technique silly and stayed away from Lang- dell's lectures. What could be more ridiculous than asking students, who by hypothesis knew nothing about the subject, to express their views? The bar was hostile and, convinced that the stubbornness of Langdell would ruin the school, founded the Boston University Law School so that Bostonians could get a proper legal education. Langdell drew around him an able triumvirate. James Barr Ames, the first and greatest disciple, was appointed Assistant Professor directly following his student days, a revolutionary step. John Chipman Gray, an experienced prac- titioner, took over the property field. James Bradley Thayer, essentially a scholar, devoted his principal thought to Evidence and Constitutional Law. Langdell's ideas became articles of faith. Keener, becoming Dean at Colum- bia after a row with President Eliot on a matter of salary, installed the C388 system and caused a bloc of the faculty to secede and form the New York Law School QCf. Boston Universityj. Wigmore took the gospel to Northwestern. Others spread it elsewhere. AMES f1895-19101 There is a general agreement that Ames was the foremost teacher in the modern history of the school. As Dean he developed and consolidated what Langdell had begun. 14