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issues of fact directed to be tried by a jury for the enlightenment of the conscience of the chancellor.

In carrying out the details of codification, efforts have been made in some of the States towards the simplification, or supposed simplification, of the rules of the common law in other directions besides these which have been already noticed.

The doctrine of Uses and Trusts, which had its origin at a very early period of the English law, was one of these legal principles which were imported along with the vast body of the law of the mother country into our jurisprudence.

This doctrine, whereby the complete title to property was supposed by a legal fiction to be divided or resolved into the two elements of legal title on the one hand, and equitable title, or beneficial ownership, on the other, is apparently of English origin (not having any exact parallel in any other legal system), and has been, as is well known, of the very first importance in the English law of real property, especially since the passage of the Statute of Uses of 27, Henry VIII. In fact, it is upon the Statute of Uses that the whole system of modern English conveyancing is based. Moreover, in the administration of justice the fictions of what are known as Implied, Resulting, and Constructive Trusts are employed for the purpose of carrying out certain equitable doctrines which thus employed constitute the machinery for the enforcement of a very large class of rights respecting both real and personal property. The subject has grown in the process of time to vast proportions and importance, and the law has become complicated, and in many instances difficult, and in a few cases contradictory. Legal literature comprises many treatises of great learning and research upon this difficult branch of English jurisprudence, and upon no subject are the decisions of the courts so numerous and important.

That reformers in law in this country should make some attempts to lop off a few superfluous branches from this widespreading growth was to have been expected; but in some States the axe has been laid to the root of the trec, and the whole doctrine of Uses and Trusts has been sought to be eradicated. Thus in New York the Revised Statutes abolished Uses, and confined Trusts within very narrow limits; and

similar legislation has been adopted in several other, principally Western, States. The advisability of so-called reformation in this particular is very questionable. The system of the law of real property must necessarily be, to a very great extent, artificial. The complex requirements of modern life in regard to the enjoyment and disposition of property could not otherwise be carried out. A forcible attempt to compel these transactions to be simple and uniform must, of course, be a failure; and to take away the legal machinery by which ends so justifiable and desirable have heretofore been carried out can be productive, in many instances, of nothing but embarrassment and confusion. That trust deeds under the English system have been prolix and complicated, is true; that the intention of the parties to such instruments may have in some instances been defeated by the very means by which they have been sought to be carried out, may be admitted; and it may also be conceded that, in the exposition of the doctrines growing out of the law of Uses and Trusts, unnecessary refinements and subtleties have occasionally crept into the law; but most of these objections are objections which are inherent in the nature of things, and proceed rather from the complex wants of men in relation to their property than from the means whereby the law has endeavored to carry them out. The true part of a wise legislation would seem to be to adopt the more patient and praiseworthy task of correcting the evils in the system, instead of the despairing process of abolishing the system altogether. Indeed, this last method of reform seems to be opposed to the proper spirit of the American intellect, which has always been to simplify, but never to destroy. The legislators of the country might well take a lesson from those who have to do with its mechanical arts, and remember how often American workmen have transformed the complicated and unmanageable machinery of their English cousins into models of simplicity and adaptiveness.

The criticism of a great American jurist and commentator upon this very subject is thoroughly wise and just. Chancellor Kent has said, "The attempt to bring all trusts within the narrowest compass strikes me as one of the most questionable undertakings in the whole business of the Revision. . . . .

It is in vain to think that an end can be put to the interminable nature of trusts arising in a great community, busy in the pursuit, anxious for the security, and blessed with the enjoyment, of property in all its ideal and tangible modifications." And the same great writer truly says that the abolition of Uses can have no effect," it is the abolition of a phantom."

Remarks similar to these which have just been suggested may also be made in reference to other attempts at reform which have been made in the law of Real Property in very many of the States. The rule in Shelley's Case, the rule which forbids the creation of legal freehold estates to commence in future, the rule which forbids the limitation of a remainder which will operate to abridge the particular estate, have all been abrogated by statute in many States. The policy of such a method of reformation may have been advocated by able men, and there may be much to be said in its support; but it is submitted with deference, that such a method is not that which is marked by the profoundest wisdom and foresight, and that it loses sight of one of the great ends of codification. The design of codification is to arrange systematically, harmoniously, and intelligibly such laws as have been found necessary to regulate civil conduct in a given society. Now if social relations are simple, the laws should be simple and few; and if by bad or careless legislation the laws have been uselessly complex, it is the business of the Revisory Code to lop off these excrescences. But where laws have become complex from the circumstance that the social relations which they regulate are intricate and varied, the difficulty is inherent in the nature of things, and no code or statute can compel simplicity in rules of civil conduct in such a state of affairs, any more than a foolish act of Congress could keep gold at par.

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Other subjects which have engaged the attention of American codifiers the rights of married women, marriage and divorce, evidence, insolvency, exemption laws are well worthy of attention, but want of time and space forbids their discussion. From the review, then, of the tendencies of American jurisprudence considered with reference to the causes which have produced its peculiarities and controlled its development, we must pass, by way of conclusion, to a statement of the general

character of the results which have been attained. And as to these results we may say that they may be grouped under three general heads, in that the law in this country has, in the progress of its hundred years of life, become (1) more simple, (2) more humane, and (3) more adaptive. That it has tended to become more simple would seem to be sufficiently plain from the instances which have been given under the head of codification; of its increased humanity, the criminal code and the laws relating to married women are fair proofs; while the facility with which it has met the changes produced by the physical and political peculiarities of the country, and the nature of its institutions, is evidence of its adaptiveness.

The pathway which American law has pursued is one upon which we can turn our eyes with feelings of no little pride; and if the progress of our national jurisprudence has not always been in precisely the right direction, it has not wandered far from the way, and has certainly been no laggard.

G. T. BISPHAM.

ART. VI.

EDUCATION IN AMERICA, 1776-1876.

Ar the close of the first century of the national existence, the advantages, necessities, and dangers of public instruction in the United States are such that the President begins and ends what is called his "Centennial Message" to Congress, December 7, 1875, with an appeal to the people for the support of the established system of common schools, and an emphatic recommendation that an amendment to the United States Constitution should be passed for the protection and promotion of this object of public concern.

He advises that "a Constitutional amendment be submitted to the Legislatures of the several States for ratification, making it the duty of each of the several States to establish and forever maintain free public schools, adequate to the education of all the children in rudimentary branches, within their respective limits, irrespective of sex, color, birthplace, or religion; forbidding the teaching in said schools of religious, atheistic, or pagan tenets, and prohibiting the

granting of any school funds or school taxes, or any part thereof, either by legislative, municipal, or other authority, for the benefit or in aid, directly or indirectly, of any religious sect or denomination, or in aid or for the benefit of any other object of any nature or kind whatever."

Within a few days after the presentation of this message, Mr. Blaine, the Republican leader of the House, introduced a bill which coincides in its tenor with the President's recommendation. His proposed amendment is this:

ART. XVI. No State shall make any law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; and no money raised by taxation in any State for the support of public schools, or derived from any public fund therefor, nor any public lands devoted thereto, shall ever be under the control of any religious sect, nor shall any money so raised or lands so devoted, be divided between religious sects or denominations.

General Grant's official utterance followed close upon a less formal expression of his opinions at Des Moines, Iowa, which attracted great attention in this country and in Europe. However accepted, these emphatic words from the chief magistrate of the Union are likely to call out, during the next few months, much educational discussion, and especially on fundamental questions in respect to the origin, growth, theory, methods, and results of public instruction in this country.

All investigators will find the task of reviewing the progress of American education during the last century peculiarly difficult. There is a great deficiency of historical and philosophical discussion bearing upon this subject; moreover, in consequence of the extreme decentralization which has governed the American policy in public instruction (as in other affairs of the State), the statistical and administrative reports, on which a thorough survey must be based, are scattered through many thousands of local reports, still uncollected and uncollated, and even, to a very considerable extent, not given to the press.

This great difficulty is balanced, however, by another consideration. Notwithstanding the diverse authorities under which instruction has been provided, the principles which

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