University of Kansas School of Law - Shingle Yearbook (Lawrence, KS)

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These little instances and the return of the Laws to quarters in the Main Building soon opened the eyes of the other depart- ments to the kind of material of which the Laws were made. The Law Students began to try for athletic, literary, and social dis- tinctions, till to-day they are equal to any in the athletic, social, and forensic life of the University. True, we are not on equal foot- ing with the four-year men in the matter of the annual oratorical contest, the conse- quence of an arbitrary rule- of the State Ora- torical Association, a rule the injustice of which our friends in the Art School acknowl- edge, but one easily overcome by the Law student applying himself to some work in the Collegiate Department. I, In athletics we proportionally surpass the remainder of the Universitly, supplying to football such men as Hamil, Wfoodward. Hess, Smith, and a dozen others. The cap- tain of the team for 'next year, Wilcox, is at present in the Law Department. In baseball the list of names, in numbers as well as in strength, will equal that of the fall sport. The interstate debates are one unbroken record of victories for this department. Our class-rolls are filled with the names of the graduates of the Art School, of nor- mal colleges and high schools, men who have been County.Superintendents, men who have spent years in educational work, men who have already been admitted to the bar. Our standard of admission has been raised, and the despised two years lengthened to three. In last year's annual, into which the Law students were inveigled by a few oily- tongued college politicians from the other end of the hall, was a coat of armspurported to be those of the Law School. It repre- sented a shield upon which, alongiwith 'fUn- cle Jimmie's physiognomy, was portrayed a sack of Duke's mixture, a pipe, a Battle Ax tag, and several other emblems suggestive of festive occasions in rented up-stairs rooms. It was a creditable piece of art, but its fal- lacies were in picturing the extreme. The true coat-of-arms of the Law student, the one he brings to the University with him, bears the motto Fight, It is the shield he bore while battling to gain means to enter school, the shield he bears here, be it in the class-room or in a tussle around a May-day flag-pole,and he will bear if with him out into the world without the class-room walls. Individually, and with few exceptions, the Law student, like his brother in practice, is a good fellow to know. His close association with classmates wears away the sharp C01-. ners of his nature and polishes off his lit- tle conceits and prejudices. The very study with which he is occupying himself is pro- ductive of a broader nature. .8 .99 .29 .3 As one brings this survey to a close, one is tempted to offer a few suggestions. Uni- versities are not ends in themselves. They must help the people of the State collective- ly. The most direct way that this is done is through the teacher, the mechanic, and the professional men, here made. The teacher does his share, and it is a noble one, but he seldom accomplishes anything outside of his narrow line, and when one has once gone into teaching it is easy to stay. The luxury of a salary is not quickly abandoned for the uncertainty of hustling. The ,best invest- ment then for the State is the professional schools. And they must not be inproficient ones, for from the weakness of the profes- sional schools the common man is the chief sufferer. The highly educated man can judge of the best, and the wealthy man can buy the best, but the common man is left to choose where he may. Cheap education is dear at any price, if it be poor education. The Fates charge compo-und interest on every blunder, and they have their own way at last. Now to apply these thoughts to our Law School. It is daily bringing a larger offering to the lawyer's office, and through that to the State. The man of law brings his quick crop iirst to market. He is becoming the court of appeals on all public questions. We have here a University of splendid construc- tion- and proportions, with a Law Depart- ment almost' deserving mention in prece- dence. There are great schools in the East: philanthropic men have endowed them Gian- sas University, too, has received a small sharej. But is it not a shame that a mill- ionaire should outdo a commonwealth? W'hat University is not always in need of more money than it can get? It must draw its revenues from the governmental chest. The whole University belongs to the people, so no part of that University has a proper right to make an appeal for funds to the people, unless it exhibits to the people some return either to itself or the people, for the funds already received. T'he Law graduates of Kansas University have never once denied their time, influence, or money, when their Alma Mater demanded them. They have ever been her most numer- ous and ardent supporters. And to the peo- ple of Kansas her Law School has and will ever keep its obligations. R. E. E. -6-

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its friends and supporters have been to place the work in this Department on a basis no less high than that occupied by Chemistry. Mathematics, the Languages, or Engineer- ing. To find a cause of any deficiency is to go a very long way toward curing it. Our de- ficiencies, if any, are in sight, our friends are men who will remedy them as fast as the slow progress of a great school with limited means will allow. Here the budding attor- ney meets men who have made the teach- ings of principles of Law their life-work. That university atmosphere, and those Uni- versity ideals, so dear to the college man, here surround the student of 'Law as well as the student of the Cla.ssics or fthe Sciences. He receives not only a lawyerts training, but has a scholar's horizon. The basis of Law is in the nature of man, not in the statute books, and here what is best in that nature is devel- oped by contact with other natures, other IHQI1. 33.33 If the Kansas University followers o-f Black- stone have succeeded in making themselves felt in the world without, their triumph in this little world within has been none the less great. Time there was when the student of the Law Department to be recognized by the student body of the University must have carried some work in the Art School. The Law to -the Art was a hayseed, an intruder from the boundless shores of ignorance. For years no brawny son of the Law School, whatever may have been his physical or men- tal ability, had a place or dared to contest for honors upon the gridiron, the diamond, or the rostrum. Theirs was an unwritten history devoid of athletic or literary recog- nition. Only now and then did some spe- cial shining light gain any social prominence. XVhile quartered in North College some of the more shy ones had never' entered Fraser Hall but twice: once to register, and again to graduate. A few, more bashful than the rest, while in these to them strange halls, backed down at the last moment without the cour- age to go after their LL.B. tHowever, f'Un- cle Jimmie always saw to it that such ones' degrees were forwarded to thema f'Yours is only a two-years course, was the ever fatal sentence which pronounced the doom of all aspirations to enter the arena and break a lance with champions from other departments. But the worm will turn, and once started, she is likely to keep flopping at a rate productive of a few dizzy heads. About the first hint that the other schools had that there was a Law Schoolfin Kansas happened thus: Judge Graves, sometime in the spring of '92 or '93, gave the Laws a. lect- ure on some branch of their work. No room in North College being large enough to ac- -O commodate the Judge's audience, they re- paired to the lecture-room in Snow Hall. Now the Laws, even at that early day, were civilized enough to wear some sort of head coverings. They left these, their hats, in the ante-rooms of the lecture hall. A few Art students having seen the Laws enter the building in a body, came over from Fraser Hall to investigate. These scouts spying the head-coverings of a heretofore unknown race, conceived a highly amusing practical joke. Collecting together about forty or fifty Art studensts, they made a silent descent upon Snow Hall, and spirited away every hat to the tower of the main building. Then, mass- ing their forces upon the stairs, they sent word to the Laws that the hats tby this time l11lSSQd.D were in the tower, and if the Laws wished said hats, to come and get them. The Laws did go and they got their hats, but the fight which preceded their recovery is one of the hardest unrecorded battles among the students of the institution. .Up the stairs went the Laws. At the first landing was grouped a crowd of Arts. There was a rush. Clothes were torn and heads bumped. The Arts who escaped ascended to reenforce those on the landing above, while others less for- tunate were passed, not too gently, down the stairs by a dozen pairs of eager hands and kicked out onto the campus by as many pairs of eager feet, and the Laws of that day did not wear Viet kid shoes either. Landing after landing was captured until the little band of men from North College reached the nar- row stairs leading to the tower. Cn these sta.irs were the football boys, the invinci- bles of that year. Passing these tough- ened athletes from hand to hand might have been slow work, so the attacking forces facili- tated matters by dropping them bodily from landing to landing, and added an extra kick at the door by way of distinction for their victims' position on the 'Varsity team. The hats were recovered, and with them respect from the lads who had reckoned without their host. Another memorable battle was the result of a practical joke perpetrated by some down-town wag. It had long been the cus- tom for the Laws on each 17th of March, St. Patrick's day, to wear their colors, green and brown. Early in the morning on one of these dates some joker, aware of all the facts, tele- phoned to North College 'to the effect that if the Laws would come over to the campus in a body the Arts would remove their colors by force if possible. Another telephone mess-- age from the same source, but pretending to come from the Laws, gave notice to the Arts that the Laws intended invading etfheir domin- ion, the campus, and defied the Arts to at- tempt to remove their brown and green. The result was a drawn battle, after several hours of hard fighting.

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FRANCIS HUNTINGTON SNOW, Chancellor of the Kansas State University, is a native of Fitchburg, Mass., born June 29, 1840. I-Ie comes of the class of men who settled along the Kaw River in the lifties, and made-the name of Lawrence a synonym for liberty. Prof. Sno'v's first connection with Kansas State University was in the capacity of Professor of Mathematics and Natural Science in 1866. Uniting his life work with this in- stitution, he has striven ever for its best interests, and in 1890 was elected to his present honored posi- tion, a just reward for his ever-unending labors for Kansas State University. Chancellor Snow's most conspicuous work has been in his chosen Held of labor, Natural Science, one of the results of which has been the building up of the large natural his- tory collection belonging to the University. While Mr. Snow's position does not bring him in as close association with the Law students as do those of our Lecturers and Instructors, yet deep down in the heart of every Law student there is a reverence for the quiet, unassuming, business-like man and Kan- sas is proud to have him at the head of this great body of schools, her State University. K7-