endom. The era of warfare has not ceased upon the earth, but if the principles for which our country has contended from its

earliest history should universally prevail among men, the future of nations will be quite different from the past.

QUIRE BERRY TODD, Magistrate

and Notary Public, long, lank and loosejointed, was apparently a typical American citizen, bearing, as many declared, a close physical resemblance to the pictures of "Uncle Sam." But mentally and morally Squire Berry was an enigma-a rara avis. He invariably took the "off" side of every controversy in Pikeville-that is to say, when his official functions decreed not otherwise.

Living alone in his dingy, cob-webbed office, holding daily converse and nightly orgies with the venerable shades of legal lore, the eccentric squire spent his declining

or rather we should say his recliningyears. With his yellow goat-beard and wisp of golden hair, the squire flaunted defiance in the face of the old man of the snows.

The squire's favorite pastime was fishing on the Sabbath, claiming that, according to the most ancient and honorable lexicographers, it was a holiday rather than a holy day, the "y" having been substituted to put a burdensome restriction on youth.

A certain warm, sunshiny day in June, when the members of the Pikeville Bar were industriously and conscientiously singing or snoring off their sins, found the squire seated on his favorite log over "Crocodile Creek." He had landed (or logged) two terrapins and an eel, and lost, by entanglement with a raft of brush, a hefty cat-fish. A swarm of mosqui toes sang about the squire, and it became

necessary for him to give them an occasional peremptory flap with his broad-brimmed palmetto hat. He was just in the agony of one of these frantic flourishes when his cork bobbed and sank, as if a five-pounder had seized the hook. The squire instantly made a sudden downward sweep, and, in the distraction of two things being done at almost one and the same time, lost his equilibrium, and went backward into the creek like a monstrous, long-legged bull-frog.

For a moment only a few big bubbles marked the spot where he had made his forcible entry, then the shiny bald spot on his head appeared, closely followed by bony arms and legs, and a furious splatter. Blowing like a porpoise, the squire struck out for the nearest stretch of shore, and had almost gained that coveted terra firma when a rusty, evil-eyed alligator suddenly intervened. Though, from the vantage ground of the shore, the log-like creature had seemed perfectly harmless and inoffensive; the squire was not anxious to cultivate his acquaintance in the water; so for once he did just what other men would have done-turned and made for the opposite shore, as if an instanter capias had been issued for him.

Imagine, therefore, his surprise and consternation when another, and larger alligator rose directly in his liquid path. "A pretty kettle o' fish!" gasped the squire. "I know now how to appreciate the feelings of a witness when the lawyers get him betwixt the

devil and the deep blue—. Shades of Blackstone!" he cried when he suddenly became entangled in the raft which had previously occasioned the loss of his cat-fish. "Help! help!"

Now it happened that the Reverend Jonas Biddle had candidates to baptize that day, and hearing the squire's cries of distress, he hurried to the rescue.

"The wicked stand in slippery places," observed the parson, carefully perching himself on the log, and opening his bible at the forty-first chapter of Job. "Listen, oh son of Belial, to the patience of Job: 'Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook? . . . Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? ("No, sah," cried the squire, with an uneasy glance at the alligators) . . . Behold, the hope of him is in vain, shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him? ("Heaven forbid it!" ejaculated the squire) . . . Who can open the doors of his face? His teeth are terriblė round about. ("For humanity's sake, stop preaching and get me out of here!" shouted the squire.). . . He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood . . . He beholdeth all high things.""

The squire crouched lower in the water, which at that point was something over waist-deep. "Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth; let him that standeth take heed lest he fall," he cried desperately. "I never-." "Do you believe in immersion?" interrupted the preacher.

"It seems so."

"Do you believe in the final preservation of the saints, and the final persecution of the wicked?"

"I believe in the final persecution of the saints and the final perseverance of the wicked," averred the squire.

"Then work out your own salvation with fear and trembling," said the preacher with a decisive ring in his voice. "My candidates are waiting yonder. I must be going."

"Stay!" cried the squire. "I subscribe to that."

"Do you promise, if admitted to the church, to love the brethren and sisters?" continued the preacher.

The squire demurred at this (he had never been an admirer of the sisters), but glancing at the alligators, which seemed to be manceuvering to foreclose their mortgage, he gave vent to a weak affirmative.

more brief question," said the preacher, securely tying a rope, which he carried for use in baptismal emergencies, to the log. "Do you, here and now, henceforth and forever renounce, denounce, decry, deny, and despise the world, flesh and the deviland fishing on the Sabbath?"

"I d-d-d-do," shiveringly admitted the squire, with an egg-blue look about his lips.

"Then, brother Berry Todd, I cast you the rope of salvation." The rope fell within easy reach. The squire seized it eagerly, and pulled with such force that the log suddenly went asunder with the Reverend Jonas Biddle on the broken end. But it served to scare off the saurians and to set the squire adrift. A few moments later he and the parson were pulled ashore by the candidates, but the main participants in this serio-comic (or religio-comic) event have never troubled each other about religion since.

L

AW schools and law school teachers have doubtless something to learn from one another. As remarked by a Harvard law professor, the knowledge of the science of teaching law is not to be found in any one particular law school. That we have in connection with the American Bar Association a section of legal education and an association of American Law Schools, is sufficient proof that at least we who are members of the same fully recognize the truth of the above proposition. Many of us travel hundreds of miles every year and listen to papers and oral discussions in the meetings of these organizations so that by the exchange of ideas we may become mutually better instructed about the best way to conduct law schools. But while these proceedings are doubtless of great value to those who witness them, they do not, after all, offer opportunities for observing and studying the methods applied in the different schools and their effect upon the students or the character of the students themselves with regard to previous preparation and other qualifications. There are many things said and done in other schools in which law is taught which we do not hear and see in our own. Some of these may and some may not commend themselves to our judgment; nor is it necessary that everything we meet with in prominent schools should receive our unqualified approval or be adopted in our own work. One may pick out that which impresses him favorably, and carry it away with him, if he chooses to do so. But even if he should conclude, after investigation, that he has not been introduced to much which is new to him or better than that of which he is already in possession, it will be a source of some satisfaction, at least, to realize that his

own school and his own methods are not very far behind those of others which are counted among the best in the land.

It was with some such feelings as these that I determined last year to visit some of the principal law schools of the country, provided I could obtain their permission to do so. It gives me great pleasure to be able to state, not only that I received favorable replies from the head of every law school to which I had directed a letter on the subject, but that those I actually visited extended to me every opportunity and facility for such observation and inspection as I felt inclined to make; and that my stay at each of these institutions was made pleasant and agreeable by the extention of the most generous hospitalities. My chief regret is that my duties at home did not permit me to include in my itinerary all of the schools I had intended to visit. As it was, I could only remain away a sufficient time to see something of Harvard, Boston University, Yale, Columbia and Pennsylvania.

One of the principal subjects in which I have been interested for some years, and which I may say engaged my special attention at these schools, is the practical working of the so-called case system in the teaching of law in law schools.

At Harvard and Columbia, the case method is employed almost exclusively. Indeed, as is well known to the profession, the case system originated in the Harvard Law School, it being first introduced there by Professor Langdell about a third of a century ago. In the Boston University, Yale and Pennsylvania law schools, it is employed only in connection with other methods, although some of the individual professors in

these schools teach law by cases entirely.

The purpose of the case system is to give instruction in law by means of judicial decisions as the basis of class room work. What are believed to be the most important cases upon a given subject, say contracts, insurance, constitutional law, or whatever it may be, are collected and published in the form of a case book, which is given to the student for study and preparation, so that he may be able to report upon and discuss in the class room the cases previously assigned to him for study. No syllabi or head notes are used or permitted in connection with the cases contained in the case book, and there is nothing to indicate the points of the decision, unless it be the title given to the subject under which the case is grouped. Copious notes are often added, however, referring to other decisions in which the same or kindred questions are determined, either in accord with or contrary to the adjudication of the principal case or cases furnishing the topic for discussion.

No one who has given this system of teaching law serious study can escape the conviction that it has become a potent factor in the world of legal education, and that it has greatly revolutionized the entire work of the law teacher. Formerly, written lectures and recitations from treatises on given subjects constituted the principal means by which a knowledge of law was imparted to law school students. Where the text-book only was employed great emphasis was placed upon the necessity of following the ideas and conclusions of the author; and the contents of the texts were usually recited by rote. The lecture system, as then practised, gave the student but little to do beyond storing up the utterances of the professor for use on examination day. It is true that the lectures contained many and frequent citations of authorities, but these were rarely ever reported on or even carefully examined by the student, and never discussed at length in the

class room. All this has now changed. The oral discussion in class has displaced the verbatim "recitation" and the written lecture. Neither the dogmatic statement of the text nor that of the instructor is any longer blindly followed, and the spirit of freedom of discussion and independence of thought prevades every well-conducted class in the law school. And this is true whether the teachng is purely by cases or not.

That these reforms in the teaching of law are wholly the result of the case system, is, perhaps, too much to say for it; but that they are so in large part must, I think, be admitted by everyone at all familiar with the subject. Every case that comes before the ciass, if carefully studied by the student beforehand, will, from the nature of its ratio decidendi, call forth either the approval or disapproval of the student of law, if he is sufficiently advanced to entertain a rational opinion on the question decided, or will, at least, raise a question of doubt in his mind, if his views as to the underlying principles of the case are not already firmly fixed. This will supply the motive for an investigation beyond the immediate scope of the decision itself. It tends to arouse the spirit of controversy which is so useful to the student, not only in the class room and in his intercourse with the teacher, but also in the actual practice of his profession afterward.

If, then, the case system has done nothing more for the cause of legal education, its right to a permanent position in law school work seems to be firmly established. But its merit is not to be confined to the beneficial influence it has exerted over the methods of teaching in a general way. Its greater utility lies in its own intrinsic fitness to accomplish the most satisfactory results in the teaching of law as a science, under proper conditions. This is not to say that it can be employed successfully with all classes of sta dents and in all circumstances. If the stu

dent's mind is sufficiently matured and his previous preparation adequate, I believe it to be the concensus of the best opinion that he can be most successfully taught by means of cases. The great majority of law students, however, especially those just beginning the work in the law school, have not received the benefits of that preliminary mental discipline which is essential to an understanding of the involved language and legal terminology contained in the average judicial opinion, and instruction to these students must be given in a way which they may be able to comprehend more readily. Hence, it may be doubtful whether during the early portion of the course in those law schools which are not entirely or even chiefly made up of students who have received a college education, the exclusive use of cases as a means of teaching law is altogether practicable. Perhaps it may be true that even among advanced students all subjects in the curriculum can not be as successfully imparted by the use of the pure case method as it might be otherwise.

I believe, however, that much of the objection to the case system, as a whole, is largely due to an imperfect understanding of what is really meant by the term. Some people seem to entertain the notion that the use of the case system implies the exclusion of every other avenue of investigation and every other means of demonstration than that of discovering and discussing the points involved in the decisions contained in the case book. They insist that the student of pure case law is too often required to cudgel his brain by wading through a mass of incomprehensible stuff found in some old English case, perhaps, the sole object of which is that he may be able to reproduce the substance of it in the class, where he will receive more or less assistance from his instructor to enable him to fathom its contents. Of course, if this is what is

meant by the case method of instruction, its opponents are clearly justified in their objections to it. The study of judicial opinions without other aid, such as lectures, collateral reading of text-books and of other decisions of the courts, would be fully as unsatisfactory as was the old method of teaching law exclusively by the sole means of recitations or lectures read from manuscript. To take up a case in class and simply find in it the point or points which it decides, accomplishes only a minimum part of the benefits which the friends of the system claim for it. The truth is, there are as many different case methods as there are instructors who teach by means of cases. This fact was firmly impressed upon me while attending the different classes in Harvard and the other law schools I visited. One professor who has a strong predilection for extemporaneous exposition uses the system largely as a means of illustrating the points in his lectures. He does not confine himself to the cases assigned for study, but makes frequent reference to other decisions and text-books which either support or oppose the ruling of the case or the point in dispute, or treat of it in any manner. This instructor does not insist so strongly upon a minute recital of the facts of the case reported on by the student as others do, and while inviting discussion on the part of the students, seems inclined to do more lecturing, which, however, is always interesting and instructive. Another teacher does the greater portion of his work in the class room by asking questions and seems to succeed in obtaining a large variety of answers, which generally lead to satisfactory conclusions. Often the same student is called upon to report as many as two or more cases of the number assigned to the class, and is required to state his impressions as to the agreement or conflict between them, whether the one may be dis