University of Michigan Law School - Quad Yearbook (Ann Arbor, MI)

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coulined very largely to the students thus handicapped. But under anysystem, a low preliminary standardis demoralizing, and under one which involves daily examinations upon topics previously assigned and the discussion by the student of legal principles and adjudi- cated cases, it is fatal to a high grade of Work. The presence of any considerable number of poorly equipped men must inevitably make the best results impossible. The law schools of to-day feel the practical difficulties of the situation and realize fully the neces- sity for reform. Those of the better class, particularly those con- nected with the universities, are doing what they can to remedy the evil by increasing their requirements for admission. Some have made radical changes in this regard, and many have -taken the initiative. Our own increased requirements go into effect in 1897, and it is the purpose of the Faculty to push the reform as rapidly as good judgment shall dictate. But the solution of the problem does not and cannot, under existing conditions, rest with the schools alone. This is not generally appreciated and I wish to make it emphatic. If every candidate for the bar were compelled to seek the schools for his professional training, the matter of preliminary education Would be exclusively in their hands. Under such cir- cumstances there Would, I am sure, be no hesitation on the part of law-school authorities in at once advancing the standard. The same result would undoubtedly be realized if the statutes governing admission provided for a substantial educational qualification. But the embarrassment of the schools must be appreciated when it is remembered that in the great majority of States there is abso- lutely no requirement as to general qualifications. The schools must lead, but they cannot, in the nature of things, bevery much in advance of the opinions of the public and the profession. The schools, the public, and the profession have a common duty to perform. They should act together. In no other Way can the ' difficulties of the situation be fully met. Qpportunities for educa- tion are now so general that substantial requirements by the State as a prerequisite to legal study wherever pursued, could rarely Work a hardship. Inna few of the States the experiment has been tried and with most satisfactory re sults. Until such requirements become general the work of the schools must be hampered by serious limi- 7 tations. We are confronted with this anomalous condition, that while in no country are the public functions of the lawyer so many

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guished jurist and historian. But this has not been the fact. Until within a comparatively recent period, it was the exception to find in theaoffice-trained lawyer a friend of the schools. The average practitioner of the old school looked with distrust upon any attempt at systematic legal instruction. This was due in part to the natural conservatism of the profession and in some degree to an imperfect understanding of the work attempted. But with the advent of a new generation, of lawyers, many of them educated in the schools, and the majority understanding the scope and purpose of the instruction offered, we End a change of sentiment that is gratifying and encouraging to the friends of sound legal learning. The first law school in the United States was established in 1782, and for several years it was the only one. Later, some of the leading universities took up the work. Our own Department was estab- lished in 1859. During the last thirty years more than fifty schools have been organized, and at least sixteen have been added to the list since I8QO. At the present time there are probably seventy- hve regularly equipped schools in the country. In 1889 the reported aggregate attendance was three thousand, nine hundred and six, in 1894 it was seven thousand, eight hundred and sixty- three. I have not at hand official reports for later dates, but it is probable that the present attendance approximates, and it may exceed, ten thousand students. The hgures are suggestive. They show a growing appreciation of the advantages of regular and systematic instruction in the law. They are also signiticant as indicating the increasing responsibility that rests upon those who are shaping the course of legal education. In view of their present public and professional importance, a brief discussion of some of the questions that confront the law schools of to-day may possibly not be without profit. And first it should be suggested that one of the most difiicult elements in the problem of systematic legal education in this country at the present time lies in the fact that there is no uniformity in preliminary training for legal study. The college graduate and the young man with the merest rudiments of an education sit side by side. In justice, the instruction should be adapted to the needs of each. Under a system in which all instruction was given by lecture, the practical difficulties were not great. liach student got what he QOl11Cl- The errlbarrassments arising from delicicnt training were

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or so important as in our own, nowhere within the pale of civiliza- tion is the matter of his general training for those functions so utterly neglected as with us. The necessity for reform should commend itself to the public generally quite as much as to the profession and the law teachers. . In its methods the law school of to-day is essentially a modern product. They are the result of an attempt on the part of legal educators to place the teaching of the law upon a university basis, so to speak. Until within a comparatively recent period, the law instructor was also engaged in active labors either at the bar or upon the bench: His duties as teacher were secondary. His services were frequently gratuitous and necessarily subject to pro- fessional demands. During the first twenty-four years of its exist- ence, the Law Department of. Michigan University had no one upon its Faculty who was devoting his entire energies to the school. For many years the period of instruction was confined to two terms of six months each. In 1884 the term was extended to nine months. And in 1886 the classes were for the Hrst time separated for the purposes of instruction. The history of the Department in the particulars mentioned finds it counterpart in the history of other schools. Under the old regime the success of the schools was due more to men than to methods. Many of them had upon their staff judges and lawyers of national reputation, men of broad culture, of extended and varied. professional experience, who were fitted by nature as well as by their acquirements for the work of instruction. Such men give to the earnest student a quickening impulse that becomes the companion of a life time. They bring to the lecture-room a wealth of experience, a freshness of illustration, and an up-to-date quality in their instruction that serves to stimulate and encourage. It was the good fortune of our Department that its first Faculty was made up of such men, and that it was able to retain them in active service for so many years. But the time has gone by when a school can de end t' - l f p en ire y or its instruction upon the necessarily irregular labors of men drawn from active life. Those best informed upon the subject of legal education very generally agree that instruction in the law should be conducted Wlth the regularity and system that characterize other universitv W0fk3 that 21 COUISC Of legal study should be a progressive one and should be pursued in accordance with Well established educational