Yale University Law School - Yale Law Reporter Yearbook (New Haven, CT)

Page 22 text:

IS Tllli YALIC SIIINGLE. Naturally none of us knew much about married women except Foster, who alone had reduced one to pos- session. Yet you mastered that subject much better in law than most men do in life, and if you don't know all about married women now, console your- sclvcs, nobody ever does. Once fairly under way, you immediately asserted your right to the proud position as the only class that ever ran a champion base ball team. I fear there may have been some hard feeling before we parted company in Junior year. I trust, however, that you have forgotten the seamy side of last .Iune's examinations. I cannot hope to follow Judge Townsend in writ- ing an article full of advice, nor do I think it neces- sary to do so. You probably wouldn't follow his advice, I'm sure you wouldn't follow mine. For advice from a live year old smacks too much of the grape. Let me stay bottled and work awhile longer before being uncorked and served to such eonnoisseurs. Only the other day a kind-hearted old farmer passed me on the street after a trial in which I took part. He had listened patiently in the jury-box while I talked earnestly to him and eleven other equally bored jurymen for an hour. As he passed, he stopped, and shaking hands, said: Young man, you did blamed well for a beginner. I s'pose you never was in court before. If I can not advise you as a lawyer, yet I may give you a few points as a clerk. Many of you will begin your practice as clerks in large offices. See to it that you make the most of your opportunities. If your employers want you enough to take you as a green

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ADDRESS TO T111-1 CLASS or 1894. Dear ! c!!oaf.v :- I feel a peculiar right to address you as above. You are the first class I ever taught. You started in with me, and I started in with you. For I believe that immediately after our reverend President had told you what an important part of Yale University you were, and after our honored Dean had told you how glad he was to see you, Qineidentally mentioning that term bills were payable at his ofhcc in advancej, you and I were introduced to each other for the first time. I shall never forget the feeling I had at that introduc- tion. As a student in '89 I had but live years before wondered how that little man, sitting behind the desk, could know so much more than I did. But when I came to sit behind that selfsame desk, I questioned whether any of you could know less than I did. In the fall of 1887, it seemed more than easy to look on the book and see if the fellows gave the right answer. In the fall of 1892, it seemed even easier for any one of you to put poscrs which Ieould neither answer out of that book or any other way. Anyhow, you will remember we started in with Infants and got through Riley vs. Mallory, Todd vs. Clapp, and Henry vs. Root very successfully. Infants created a bond of sympathy at once. A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind. But we stuck at Married Women.

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'l'lIIi YAl.l'l SI-IIXULIC. I9 hand, be sure it is your own fault if they do not keep you as an experienced one. When you go into an office, determine to make yourself so indispensable to the firm that they cannot get along without you. XVhen you have done that, you can dictate your own terms. To be able to do a little better than the average means success, to do a little worse,-fail- ure. The coefficient of success is very small, but very powerful. It is said that the profession is over- crowded. Perhaps it is, with attcmrneys-at-law-it isn't with lawyers. And there never was such a demand as there is now for men to start in ofhces as clerks on a living salary. But the men wanted for these positions are men of active minds and original ideas, men of common sense as well as of sound legal theories. In short, men just a little superior in ability to the average. If you get in an office and are told to do a thing, do not be content when like a mere machine you have done that particular thing. Keep your mind alert while doing it, and something may occur to you that hasn't occurred to your employer. VVork it out on your own hook, and show him you can use your trained mind as it was intended it should be used. You will probably be asked to look up evi- dence on particular points in a ease. Nine times out of ten, you will, if you are of the right stuff, develop some other point which may win your ernployer's case. Then your prospects will be greatly improved. Let me repeat myself. When you go into an ofhce make yourself so indispensable to the firm that they can not get along without you. I must say one thing more to all of you which I