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

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its application in actual controversies between man and man. fTe Supplements admirably the more strictly academic labors of his resident associate. A ' , It is very generally conceded that the school is the proper place for the theoretic study of the law. The oppOrtu11ifiCS Offered EITC vastly superior to any that can be had in the ofhce of the busy practitioner. But it has been urged, and With SOTI16 TC-215011, that while. the student may leave the school fairly well grounded in fundamental principles, he is but a child when he attempts their application. The practicing lawyer has frequently asked, and in no uncertain terms, to be delivered from the recent law-school graduate. From the Hrst, the schools have attempted something in the way of practical work. In the nature of the case, however, they were, until recently, able to accomplish very little in that direction. Without resident instructors, intimate personal work that is'absolutely necessary in teaching the practical application of legal principles was impossible. But with the advent of the well- equipped resident Faculty, a great change in this regard has taken place. The law school has become in a measure a great law office. The student is thrown into close personal relations with trained men, lwhose duty it is not only to teach legal principles, but to aid him with practical suggestions and directions. Under the new regime it has also become possible to inaugurate and carry on suc- cessfully the ordinary ofHce and court work of the practicing lawyer. No school in the country has gone so far in this direction as our own Department. The .work of the practice court has become a prominent feature of the law course and a most valuable one. The entire time of one member of the resident Faculty is given to it, and all of the resident members aid to a greater or less extent. The work embraces not only the practice of the old moot courts, which involved simply the argument of some question of law, but in addition the actual commencement of the action and its prose- cution to a judgment upon the issues of law involved, and also the trial by jury of questions of fact. Each student must become an actor in trials conducted with all the formality and incidents of actual controversies in court. The results of the work more than meet the expectations of th F l supplied. It is not claim ties can make trained law e acu ty. A long-.felt need has been ed, of course, that the present opportuni- yers, but only that they serve as ai helpful

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methods: that instruction should be personal so far as it is possible to niakc it so: that the inifornial exercise based upon an approved text or adjudicated cases should, in the ordinary and fundamental subjects at least, take the place of the formal lecture, and that in all the work the student should be subjected to the spur of daily examinations and discussions conducted with a view of testing his acquirenients and at the same time making him familiar with the methods of legal reasoning. It is apparent that to conduct a school along the lines indicated, a resident corps of competent instructors, whose duty it is to give their predominant energies to the Work, must be provided. This the leading schools have done. With us the change from the old to the new has been a conservative and gradual one. Regular text-book instruction was introduced in 1883. For a time it was confined to the junior class and to assign- ments from the Commentaries of Blackstone. A newly elected resident professor, the hrst to devote his entire time to the Depart- ment, had charge of the work. The departure was at .once recog- nized as a step in the right direction. From time to time other text-book courses were added. lVith the introduction of the three years' course, it was thought advisable not only to provide for additional text-book instruction, particularly in the earlier part of the course, but also to increase materially the number of required daily exercises. Seven of the eleven subjects of the first year and four of the eleven subjects of the second year are now taught with a text as the basis of the work. In the third year the change is less marked. The most of the instruction is still by lecture. But the lecture course of to-day, supplemented as it is by section quizzes and the careful study of selected cases, is to all intents and purposes a text-book course. While the resident Faculty has been largely increased in numbers, in order tolmeet the demands of changed methods and additional requirements, it is still the policy of the Department, and properly so I think, to retain upon its staff repre- sentative men from active professional life. The practitioner has, and must always have, an important service to perform in the Held of legal education. It is through him that the school is kept in touch with the activities of the profession. He brings to the discussions of the class-room a present experience that gives a practical touch to his instruction and challenges attentiO11- IH hifi hands the dry legal principle becomes a living reality, for he shows

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introduction to thc methods of actual practice. W'ith the addition of practical work in conveyancing and in the preparation of legal papers generally, which the Faculty hope soon to make, it is thought that the Department will oifer advantages that must commend them- selves both to the student and the practitioner. The primary object of the law school should, of course, be the training of young men for active work at the bar, but the school that has simply the practical in view fails in an important particular. The law school of to-day should teach and should encourage the study of law in its larger sense. lt has been said that Ha danger to the standing of the profession lies in a tendency of our law schools to frame their courses of study with a View to the mechanism rather than the science ofthe law. It is possible that there is a basis for the claim as against those schools that are conducted largely as business ventures. But I am persuaded that the law faculties of our great universities, while providing each year better facilities forinstruction along purely practical lines, are thoroughly alive to the fact that the historical and the scientifictshould not be sacrificed to the practical. The extending of the course of study, which is becoming general in the best schools, furnishes the oppor- tunity which earnest teachers of the law have long desired, for instruction in the development of our jurisprudence. The best thought of the past must always contribute to the best thought of the present. This is as true in the law as inother departments of learning. Theoretic and historical knowledge alone would never it the student for the demands that the profession of the law is sure to bring, but couple it with the practical, and we have the best possible basis for professional success. The thorough and scientiiic work that our best schools are now attempting, must certainly result in higher professional standards among practitioners and in awakening and maintaining an interest in the philosophic study of jurisprudence. H' B- HUTCHINS'