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LEGAL EDUCATION.

E. M. PRINCE, OF BLOOMINGTON.

READ BEFORE THE ILLINOIS STATE BAR ASSOCIATION, JANUARY 14, 1890.

Cardinal Manning's definition of education is especially appropriate to that essential to the lawyer-that is, to see things clearly, and to be able to state them clearly. Whoever is able to see legal things, facts and principles, and their connection, and is able to express them accurately, has the elements of a great legal mind. The late Judge David Davis once told me, that Judge Stephen T. Logan was the ablest lawyer he had ever met; and in reply as to what mental characteristic this ability was due, he said, to his clear perception and unrivaled power of cogent reasoning; that the premise of his arguments seemed self-evident truths, so plausibly were they stated, but if they were admitted by his opponent, the judge was the certain victor, so faultless was his logic. Nothing can compensate the lawyer for the lack of this clear vision and precision of statement. Wit, imagination, magnetism, facility of speech, can do much, but these will prove broken reeds, unless based on this fundamental qualification, for we may say of its practice as Lord Coke said of its philosophy, "Reason is the life of the law."

All intellectual effort is but a study of law. The child studies the law of the formation of letters into syllables, syllables into words, words into sentences, and sentences into discourses. The astronomer studies to comprehend the law by which worlds are made and held in their places while circling through space in their majestic orbits. Burke says, "Law is beneficence, acting by rule." This is, of course, the ideal of what all law should be, in the light of which it should be formulated, interpreted and executed. But we never reach our ideals, and have to accept narrower definitions of law, as administered by our courts. You all remember Blackstone's definition of municipal law, "A rule of civil conduct prescribed by the supreme power in a state, commanding what is right, and prohibiting what is wrong." One of the latest, is that of Judge Benjamin, in his Principles of Contract, "The totality of rules of action which are enforcible by public authority." Even in this aspect, it is a field coincident with all human enterprise, and may well tax man's highest powers, and inspire his greatest enthusiasm.

Much of the education requisite to make a good lawyer, is that required to make a man successful in any calling. It would, perhaps, be too much to say that a great lawyer must have all the education that is special to all other avocations, but

this, at least, is certain, he must have that general culture and training, combined with an alertness of mind, that will enable him quickly to master any branch of knowledge. There is no sphere of public activity which a lawyer may not be called upon, in his professional career, to investigate and pass upon.

Notwithstanding the complete severance here of Church and State, the history of religious opinions in this country might well be gathered from the litigation in our courts. Andover Seminary is now fighting out, in the Massachusetts courts, the old and new orthodoxy of Congregationalism, involving, substantially, the dogmatic history of that great Church, from Plymouth Rock to the present day. In the enforcement of our patent laws, the lawyer is often called upon to investigate the most recondite and difficult principles of chemistry and physic. If he is called into a case against a railroad, he must know as much about the point of railroading involved in the litigation, as the railroad experts themselves. So, in the course of his profession, he may be obliged to become an expert in mining, milling, engineering, farming, book-keeping, insanity surgery, medicine, etc. No other calling requires so broad a foundation for its special training, as that of the law. The lawyer, to use a sporting term, must be an all-around athlete, capable, at a moment's notice, of training with good condition in any special department of human knowledge, industry or activity.

Carlyle says, that "great men, taken up in any way, are profitable company." So we may say that the study of law "taken up," either as a life-work or as a preparation for other work, is "profitable company." Henry Watterson, the brilliant editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, in an address on Journalism, advised young men about to enter that profession, to study and practice law a short time, on account of the drill it would give them in habits of concise, logical thinking and statement. It is this aptitude of quickly and accurately mastering the facts of any particular subject, an aptitude born of the very nature of our profession, that is due the fact that all our presidents—except our military heroes-three-fourths of our senators and representatives in Congress, cabinet officers, heads of bureaus, and the controlling influence in our State legislatures, are, and have been lawyers. This is not due to accident or self-seeking, but to the eternal fitness of things-the fact that the lawyer's training fits him better than that of any other class to deal with the multifarious affairs of public life. When Mr. Lincoln wanted a great war secretary, he did not go to the army; Gen. Halleck, as military adviser, was not a success. Nor to business, for Simon Cameron, an eminently successful business man, had failed. He went to the bar, and found in Edwin M. Stanton, another organizer of victory. The greatest railroad manager in this country, the man to whom is committed greater financial interests than to any one else in the United States, and perhaps in the world, Chauncey M. Depew, had become celebrated as a lawyer before he became a railroad president. A New York capitalist, several years ago, became famous as a reputed railroad wrecker, while Gen. McNulta, one of our Bloomington lawyers, has become famous as a resurrectionist of moribund railroads, gladdening the hearts of despairing bond-holders with copious dividends. These instances might be multiplied ad infinitum, of the overflow of lawyers into high, responsible positions in other activities of life, due to their habits of accurate thought and clear judgment, begot of their profession.

I think this is the explanation of the well-known anecdote of Dr. Buckland, the naturalist, George Stephenson and Sir William Follett, the lawyer, while visiting

at a nobleman's country seat: Buckland and Stephenson got into a discussion on some point of natural history, and soon the naturalist silenced the railroad man. The next morning, Follett, finding Stephenson in a deep study, asked him what he was thinking about. "About the discussion last evening with Buckland,” was the reply; "he got the bettter of me, but I think I was right." "Well," replied the lawyer, "I don't know anything about natural history, but talking is my business, and if you will give me the facts, I will give Dr. Buckland a trial." Thereupon Stephenson gave him the points of the controversy, and a few minutes later, at the breakfast table, the conversation was turned to the subject of the last night's dispute, and then ensued a discussion between Buckland and Follett, and in a short time the naturalist had to acknowledge himself beaten in his own chosen field; and then Follett turned to Mr. Stephenson and said: "Well, what do you think of that?" "I think," was the reply, "that of all the gifts on earth, the gift of gab is the greatest." Now, I think the answer missed the point. It was not facility of speech, which every old gossip in the country shared with the great lawyer, but the marvelous ability to quickly master the facts in a branch of knowledge of which he was ignorant, and arrange those facts in a convincing, logical sequence, and the corresponding power to detect error in the illogical arguments of his opponent.

Another consideration renders legal acquirements in a business man of great value. In all enterprises of great pith and moment, many questions of law are involved which a purely business man is not fitted to deal with, but if he has had a legal as well as a business education, he decides the legal as he does the business questions, as he meets them, and his operations prossess a unity, precision, boldness and celerity, not possible to a man destitute of a legal training. Keeping in mind then, that the lawyer must be educated to see legal things, facts and principles, their application, relation, connection and limitation, quickly and accurately, must possess the power of clear, simple statement, both of law and fact, what special education will secure these results? We have spoken of the general education needed by the lawyer, what of his technical legal education? The law of the State recognizes two courses, one a two years' course of study in any recognized law school of this State, and the other a course of study equivalent thereto, in the office of a licensed lawyer of this State, under his direction and supervision, submitting to satisfactory examinations by him at convenient intervals. Prior to the adoption of the present rule, in October, 1888, the student was required to 'pursue for two years, a regular course of law studies in the office of some lawyer in "general practice." The requirements of this rule had practically become as obsolete, as the wager of battle as a method of settling legal difficulties. The student was always presumed by the "lawyer in general practice" to be studying in his office if he came there once in six months, to borrow a Blackstone or Kent, no matter though all the rest of the time he was teaching school, plowing corn or behind the merchant's counter. The certificate was never refused. The present rule, I suppose, intends to secure two years' study by a student in the office of a licensed lawyer, who shall take the actual directions and supervision of his studies, and examine him at such frequent intervals, that the instruction the student may receive from the lawyer, would be some equivalent to that of the law schools, by which private instruction is measured. But I submit that this rule will fail of any such effect. It is too vague to be efficient. "To submit to satisfactory examinations at convenient intervals." "Satisfactory" to whom, the court, lawyer or stu

dent? "Convenient intervals." Once a day, month or year? "Convenient" to whom, the lawyer or the student? Who does not know that this whole thing of studying under a lawyer and submitting to any real examinations, is the broadest of broad farces? It is said that in the later days of pagan Rome, two augurs could not meet without a broad smile at the ludicrousness of their occupation. I am sure that when this rule was formulated, a broad smile must have gone around the bench of our Supreme Court. I am not blaming the court, perhaps it was the best thing they could do. As a partial remedy, I cannot help thinking of a remark by that genial but unregenerate heathen, Bob Ingersoll, that whenever he read a miracle, he felt like cross-examining the narrator. The Appellate Court cannot get hold of the "licensed lawyer" who gives the certificate, but the applicant is at hand, and a five minutes cross-examination of him will show in ninetynine cases out of a hundred, that the direction and supervision of the lawyer consists, in telling the student to begin by reading Blackstone, a very poor piece of advice, and telling him where in the library to find the book, and that examinations at convenient or any other intervals, are as absolute fictions of the law as ever were our venerable friends, John Doe and Richard Roe, now happily relegated to the domain of legal history. If the student under such circumstances becomes a lawyer, it is no thanks to the lawyer, but is due to his own unaided strength.

But perhaps some one will say, the student in an office gets a practical education. Practical in what? Running errands, and perhaps, if in a country office, sweeping it out occasionally. Every practicing lawyer knows that a student does not know enough about drawing pleadings and other legal papers to be of any assistance to him. He can do it in half the time he can tell a student how to do it, and seldom asks him more than once to do anything of the kind.

We all know what potent factors in progress are habit, emulation and necessity. The solitary student in an office loses much of this impulse to study. There is no pressing necessity for getting a lesson to-day; it may go over till to-morrow or next day. He may study one hour to-day, ten to-morrow, and none next day. He lacks habits of systematic study, the stimulus of the example of ambitious young men pursuing the same studies, the direction and supervision of his studies, all of which, and much more, he would get in a well regulated law school.

What do these law schools offer the legal aspirant as a preparation for his life work? The methods of instruction in these schools are by recitations from approved text books, as in all the schools in this State, by lectures, as in some schools, and by a combination of lectures and recitations, as in others. There can be no doubt of the very decided superiority of recitations over lectures as a means of legal instruction, at least for such students as attend the Illinois law schools. No one is fitted to gain very much advantage from lectures on any subject, unless he has had considerable previous education on that topic-at least enough to understand its general principles; and has, moreover, a sufficient general education and alertness of mind to instantly seize the idea of the lecturer, and connect or corrolate it with the ideas he already has, and without which it is all mere intellectual rubbish. Instruction, to be of any value, must be based on a knowledge of what the student already possesses. This individual knowledge of the pupil is not possible in the lecture room. From my own experience, and from the concensus of all students who have attended both the lecture and recitation school, I am certain lectures are not an efficient means of legal education. The student does, indeed,

get the stimulus of other minds pursuing the same subject, the inspiration of the teacher's voice, presence and example, and the actual direction of his studies, and, of course, if a diligent student, he will get much from the lectures themselves, but for the loafer, the lecture room is paradise. No one knows, or apparently cares, whether he has studied the lesson or not. He may be asked a question once a

week on a "quiz," but he will take his chances of that.

All the law schools in this State are conducted on the recitation system, their course covering two years. I have thought I might best illustrate their work by that of the Bloomington Law School, with which I have been connected for several years as a teacher. We do not seek to cover a great number of subjects, but we do try to teach most thoroughly the fundamental principles of the law. These are gone over so carefully, with such thorough analysis, exposition, discussion and reviews of the subject, that the student, in his two years course, has laid a solid foundation of legal principles, by the aid of which, he can safely and intelligently tread his way through the intricate, and often contradictory, mazes of reported There never was a time when such knowledge was so essential as to-day. Unless the lawyer is able to test these cases by a knowledge of those rules that lie at the foundation of our jurisprudence, he will prove an unsafe and dangerous counsellor. These principles must become so familiar to him, that he instinctively refers to them for his guidance. With their knowledge, he is fitted to enter upon any of the manifold special fields of legal study. Without them, he is like a rudderless ship upon a boundless ocean.

cases.

Let me illustrate our methods. Take the subject of common law pleading The object of pleading is to apprise the court of the subject matter of litigation. I have never known a case so complicated, or so abstruse, that the court could not, in a ten minutes' talk, even of a dull lawyer, find out what the law suit was about. It is a reproach to the American bar that a subject, so simple in its nature, should, by our practice, have been made so cunningly and elaborately artificial, that the settling of pleadings, ascertaining the mere forms of litigation, should occupy so much of the time of our courts, and the subject, from its very artificiality, should have become one of the most difficult of acquirement in legal education. There is, however, nothing so mortifying to a young lawyer, as to find his pleadings wrong. Clients, as well as the general public, are quite apt to conclude that the lawyer who does not know enough to tell the court, in writing, what his lawsuit is about, does not know enough to be entrusted with its management; that if he is ignorant of the form of his case, he certainly knows little of its substance. The Bloomington school, therefore, gives unusual prominence to this subject, knowing that the pupil will, in its study, acquire much of the substance of the law, as well as the forms of litigation. In the winter term, the juniors have Stephens, the most elementary work on pleading, and in the spring term, Gould, going into the subject more in detail, and the seniors have Chitty two terms. This, supplemented throughout the two years by the preparation by the student of pleadings, from given cases in the moot court, and criticism on them by one of the faculty, gives a drill in common law pleading not surpassed in this country. Take another subject, elementary law. This we have through the whole course. Walker, Blackstone and Kent, each succeeding book a review of the previous one by a new work, treating the same subject in a more extended form. Or take the great subject of Torts. Besides that topic in Walker, Blackstone and Kent, we have Bige

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