Washington and Lee University - Calyx Yearbook (Lexington, VA)

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iC ' Cl)r ltlas1)ing:ton anti Her Ca D d)ool An Enumeration of a Few of Its Distinguished Alumni. T IS given to few men to perform as great and as lasting labor for their fellow- men as did Judge John W. Brockenbrough; for to him is due, in the last analysis, and without detracting in any measure from the other great and good men who have served it, the unbruken success of so many years which has been the lot of the Washington and Lee Law School. The year 1 849 marked the loundation by Judge Brockenbrough of the Lexmgton Law School. To it he devoted the best and most arduous labors of his life, and on its rolls are found the names of many who became distinguished in the history of Virginia and of other states. After it became, in 1 866, The School of Law and Equity of Washington College, Judge Brockenbrough lemained at its head, and was, until Hon. John Randolph Tucker was (in 1870) elected associate professor, its sole teacher. In 1873 his connection with the school was severed by his resignation. Judge Brockenbrough was preeminently qualified to teach the law, and the success which attended his efforts was well deserved. He had published in 1837 two volumes of reports containing Chief Justice John Marshall ' s decisions in the Circuit Court of the United States for Virginia and North Carolina, which attest the capacity, industry, and professional skill of the reporter. At the bar his work had been of the highest rank. Fifteen years ' service on the bench as judge of the United States Court for the Western District of Virginia had witnessed not a single decision of his reversed by the Supreme Court. Since he brought to his work in the law school a mind eminently judicial, and a desire, to use his own words, to generate in the mind of the student a taste for the study of law as an enlarged and rational system of jurisprudence, and to imbue him with the philosophical spirit which pervades it throughout all its extensive ramifications; to teach him to regard it as a noble and refined science, and not merely as a crude collection of arbitrary precedents, the high rank in the profession taken by so many of Judge Brockenbrough ' s graduates is but natural. It is hard to conceive of the labors of one man producing such far-reaching results, but among the graduates of the Lexington Law School during its sixteen years ' existence, for four of which the war necessitated suspension, were John Goode, member of the Virginia Legislature, of the Virginia Convention of 1861, and of the Confederate Congress, Congressman from Virginia, president of the Virginia Constitutional Conven- tion of 1901-02, and Solicitor-General of the United States; Robert E. Cowan, another

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U. S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE LAMAR

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Virginia legislator and member of the Virginia Convention of 1861, later a judge in Missouri; William A. Seay, Law professor in Louisiana State Uni- versity, Judge of the United States Dis- trict Court, and Minister to Bolivia; Roijcrl Willie. Attorney-General of West nginia; John J. Davis, member of the Virginia and West Virginia legislatures, and Congressman from West Virginia; Henry M. Matthews, Attorney-General and Governor of West Virginia; Robert M. Mayo, Congressman from Virginia; James B. Sever, Member of Congress Irom Virginia and later Judge of the United States Court in the 1 errilory of Wyoming; Alphonso C. Avery, Judge of the Superior Court of North Carolina; Adam C. Snyder, Judge of the Court of Appeals of West Virginia; General Scott Ship, for many years Superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute, and many other great and distinguished men. The good work of the Law School in training young men was continued with unabated vigor after its union, in 1866, with Washington College. It has always been guided by the ablest teachers, and a list of its professors would in itself be a roll of great men. Upon Judge Brockenbrough ' s resignation in 1873 Judge Tucker became Dean of the school, remaining at its head until hii dualh iii I8 7. Abler pens than mine have paid tribute to Judge Tucker, and it is unnecessary that I should say more of him than to quote the words of one whose fortune it was to study law under him: When in 1872-3 I was one of his law students, he was incomparably the most perfect instructor, in all r.-s|)ecls, that I, cither as a boy or man, have e er known. He was clear, concise, and entertaining as a lecturer, and yel as full and complete as it was practicable to be with students; his methods ol instruction obtained the best results from the clever as well as from the dull student. In later years Charles A. Graves, William McLaughin. Judges Bolivar Christian, Hugh W. Sheffey, and Waller R. Staples, of the Virginia Court of Appeals, Harry St. George I ' ucker, [ohn W. Davis and William R. Vance, themselves alumni of the il-.NATOK OWIiN