! lr'l * i l *i \V \tt 1H 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLi^bh(S G 
 BULLETIN "wtvtRsiTY of luiNd 
 
 Vol. XXV 
 
 May 29, 1928 
 
 No. 39 
 
 Dedication of the 
 Law Building 
 
 PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 URBANA 
 
 [Entered as second-class matter December 11, 1912, at the post office at Urbana, Illinois, 
 under the act of August 24, 1912. Acceptance for mailing at the special rate of post- 
 age provided for in section 1103, Act of October 3, 1917, authorized July 31, 1918.] 
 
Pmfrersttg of ,3liImots 
 
 tEtjursfrag, ©etcher 13 
 1927 
 
program 
 
 Afternoon — 4 o'clock 
 Professor Frederick Green, Presiding 
 
 Address Dean Albert J. Harno 
 
 Address Judge Fred L. Wham 
 
 Evening — 8 o'clock 
 President David Kinley, Presiding 
 
 Address Judge Oliver A. Harker 
 
 Address Dr. James Brown Scott 
 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 
 
 Frederick Green 
 Professor of Law 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2013 
 
 http://archive.org/details/dedicationfolawbOOuniv 
 
w 
 
 e have come here this afternoon because it 
 has seemed fitting to mark in some distinct 
 way the advent of the Law School to its new 
 abode. We call it dedicating the Law Building. Yet we 
 might well say, as Lincoln did at Gettysburg, that in a 
 larger sense we cannot dedicate this building ; those men 
 who shall come here to study and to learn will dedicate 
 it beyond our power to add or to detract. 
 
 Of course, to paraphrase a poet, stone walls do not a 
 Law School make, nor reading rooms a sage. And yet, 
 there is something in having quarters that are dignified, 
 commodious, and pleasing, which add measureably to 
 the feeling of satisfaction and content with which one 
 goes about his daily work, and which, in the long run, 
 ought to have an effect upon the disposition, and, if a 
 man's character isn't already ossified, I suppose upon 
 his character, too. It is this connection between the 
 surroundings and the mind which gives substance to the 
 saying that cleanliness is next to godliness. Shakespeare 
 has said with a slightly different intent that "as this 
 temple waxes, the inward service of the mind and soul 
 grows wide withal." So may it be with the Law School. 
 In fact, the agriculturists tell us that even cows, if you 
 play them sweet music, give better milk. 
 
 I don't know that there are many in this audience who 
 read the society column in the Sunday Tribune as assidu- 
 ously as they read the football page. I do. I glance at 
 each occasionally. And I was sorry, a few weeks ago, to 
 see that that sprightly and generally well-informed writer, 
 who uses the nom-de-plume of Madame X, made dis- 
 paraging remarks about the architecture of this building. 
 I am sure she could have given it only a cursory glance. 
 And no doubt her purpose was to emphasize the ad- 
 vantages that the University Library has in its new loca- 
 tion. Well, let us grant that some of the building's out- 
 lines may be harsh and crude, and the curve of its arches 
 
 -{7}- 
 
somewhat reminiscent of a by-gone epoch. Is it, there- 
 fore, less typical of the law? And if the necessity of de- 
 veloping to meet the changing and expanding needs of 
 changing times has rendered its form somewhat sprawl- 
 ing, is not that, too, typical of law? To me, it is a con- 
 stantly recurrent joy to see the tower rising above the 
 foliage of the trees, or, as you see it from the Wright 
 Street side, soaring into the air above the adjoining 
 roofs like a cathedral spire. I think it is a thing of 
 beauty. Perhaps in course of time it has become, like 
 the face of a friend, something that is no longer a mere 
 matter of lines or angles ; but to me there is in its fine, 
 aspiring lines and stately, well-balanced proportions 
 something that fitly symbolizes that metaphorical thing 
 we call the majesty of the law. 
 
 I have been given to understand that the Law School 
 was started in 1897. So it is now thirty years old. For 
 a few years its classes met in University Hall, wherever 
 there happened to be room, and then we acquired, if I 
 may paraphrase a poet again, a local habitation and a 
 dean. President Draper acted as dean for a while, but 
 Dean Scott was the first dean we had all to ourselves. It 
 was under his auspices that we entered our first building, 
 and so it is especially fortunate that he is here to help 
 us celebrate our coming into this building. Dulce et 
 decorum est. 
 
 As this New Law Building is the Old Library Build- 
 ing, so that Law Building was the Old Chemistry Build- 
 ing. And there the Law School lived for some years, if 
 not precisely in the odor of sanctity, very decidedly in 
 the odor of chemistry. But the smells that came from 
 the chemicals that soaked the floors were mitigated, 
 alleviated, and at times completely overwhelmed by the 
 smells that came from the taxidermist's shop in the base- 
 ment. I believe that most of the animals in the Natural 
 History Museum were skinned and eviscerated in that 
 basement. So while strange beasts and rare birds were 
 
manufactured in the basement, the upper stories of the 
 building were engaged in producing and sending forth a 
 multitude of lawyers who went to practice law from 
 Florida to Seattle, and even in the Philippines. One of 
 our graduates has sat on the bench of the Supreme Court 
 of China. One of them, at least, is a member of the 
 House of Representatives. One is a member of the 
 House of David. 
 
 And the Law School has been not only a seminary of 
 lawyers, but a proving ground and developing field for 
 law teachers. Our faculty, though not numerous at any 
 one time, has been numerous in its totality, for there 
 have been many changes and at times it has seemed as 
 if the average stay of a teacher was hardly longer than 
 that of a student. Teachers have, gone out from this 
 School to teach law from Sandy Hook to San Francisco, 
 and from the Falls of Minnehaha to the Gulf of Mexico. 
 One of them has taught law in that ancient seat of learn- 
 ing, Oxford University, and now lives in that still more 
 ancient seat of learning the city of Alexandria, Egypt. 
 So that the present School is the result of the thought 
 and planning of a very considerable body of men. 
 
 A large part of the history of legal education in the 
 last quarter of a century, or perhaps I should rather say, 
 a large part of the history of law schools, has been a his- 
 tory of the raising of the standards of the schools. Stand- 
 ards are things that live in a world of one-dimensional 
 space. They move vertically, up or down. You can 
 raise them and you can lower them. I have never heard 
 of their being broadened. An equilibrium is always 
 maintained, because when your standards go up, your 
 attendance goes down. Then in a few years attendance 
 increases and it becomes necessary to redress the bal- 
 ance by raising the standards again. So we have already 
 raised our standards of admission twice, and soon we 
 are going to raise them for a third time. 
 
 "4 9}- 
 
Once in my student days I went to hear a lecture by 
 a very distinguished man. I have completely forgotten 
 who he was, but I remember very well the professor who 
 introduced him. A period of an hour was available for 
 the lecture. The professor, being absent-minded like 
 his kind, when he found himself on a platform talking, 
 thought he was giving a lecture of his own, and spoke 
 for forty minutes, leaving only twenty for the man we 
 had come to hear. You should not build a portico bigger 
 than the house. So I have pleasure in introducing to 
 you a gentleman whose equanimity I will not disturb 
 by saying anything about him. It isn't necessary: — 
 Dean Harno. 
 
 -iio}- 
 
Address 
 
 SOME OBSERVATIONS ABOUT LEGAL 
 EDUCATION 
 
 Albert James Harno 
 Dean of the College of Law 
 
J EG 
 
 egal education in English speaking countries has 
 had a history peculiarly its own. Moore in his 
 ^j Utopia wrote of a happy state rendered especially 
 so because from it all lawyers were barred. Might we 
 conjecture from this that blissful was life in old England 
 before King John, for during his reign the first learned 
 lay lawyer made his appearance? From the time of 
 King John to Edward I the English Courts gradually 
 became localized at Westminster Hall and lawyers gath- 
 ered in London from all parts of the kingdom and 
 formed there the "Inns-of-Court" where, in kind, in- 
 struction was given in law. These Inns came later to be 
 known as the four legal "Societies of Lincoln's Inn, 
 Gray's Inn, The Inner Temple, and the Middle Temple." 1 
 In the Seventeenth Century instruction in the Inns 
 consisted principally of "reading, bolting, and mooting 
 of cases." By "mooting of cases" was meant attention 
 to arguments by barristers who had been called to the 
 bar, or to those of "students who had become expert 
 "bolters'." By "bolting of cases" was meant the "con- 
 versational discussions upon cases put to students by a 
 bencher or two barristers sitting as judges in private 
 chambers." The readings were given by two persons 
 appointed from among the most distinguished barristers. 
 The method of instruction followed in the Inns had sev- 
 eral incidents which one might venture to believe will 
 find a warm reception on the part of some of our own 
 students. We are told "there were no prescribed attend- 
 ance, no lectures and no regular course of study ... a 
 student being simply obliged to eat three dinners, (six, in 
 case of a non-University man) in the Hall of the Inn, 
 in each of the four terms, Hilary, Easter, Trinity and 
 Michaelmas ; and after 'keeping' a certain number of 
 
 n Warren, History of 'the Harvard Law School, (1908), pp. 36, 37. 
 
 -{ 13 y 
 
terms (at different periods, 7, 10, and 5 years) he was 
 called by the 'benchers' as a barrister." 2 
 
 Books for law study were few. Rolle, in his Abridg- 
 ment written in 1668, suggests the following reading 
 course for students : 
 
 Spend two or three years in the diligent reading of Littleton, 
 Perkins, Doctor and Student, Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium and 
 especially my Lord Coke's Commentaries and possibly his Reports — 
 After two or three years so spent, let him have a large commonplace 
 book, afterwards it might be fit to read the Year Book; because 
 many of the elder Year Books are filled with law not so much in 
 use; he may single out for his constant reading such as are most 
 useful, as the last part of Edward III, the Book of Assizes, the sec- 
 ond part of Henry VI, Edward IV, Henry VII, and so come down 
 in order and succession of time to the latter law, viz.: Plowden, 
 Dyer, Coke's Reports, the Second Term and those other Reports 
 lately printed. 3 
 
 The Inns-of-Court had a determinative influence up- 
 on legal education in England, and English methods in 
 turn molded the American processes. While in con- 
 tinental European countries legal education has ever 
 been under the influence of the universities, the Inns-of- 
 Court, being distinctly professional societies, created a 
 cleft between "the barristers with their practical law," 
 on the one side and the universities with their theoreti- 
 cal work on the other. The Inns, independent of the 
 universities, assumed the responsibility of preparing 
 members for the bar. Indeed, the idea has persisted to 
 this day in this country and in England that the training 
 of lawyers is an undertaking which should well be left 
 to the profession. 4 Only in recent years have the univer- 
 sities been conceded any respectable part in the scheme. 
 
 The Eighteenth Century was marked for legal educa- 
 tion by the appearance of Blackstone's Commentaries, 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 38. See also, Training for the Public Profession of the Law, The 
 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, (1921), pp. 15, 16. 
 
 3 Quoted by Warren, ibid., p. 39. 
 
 4 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, op. cit., p. 108; 
 McMurray, The Place of Research in the American Law School, (1925), Hand- 
 book of the Association of American Law Schools, pp. 20, 26. 
 
 -| 14 }. 
 
the first American edition of which was published in 
 1771-1772. These at once had "a profound influence 
 upon the legal development of this country," for they 
 became the paternoster for the young aspirant to the 
 bar. Early American law schools were lecture schools in 
 which Blackstone's Commentaries formed the "exclusive 
 basis of the work." Lectures soon developed into text- 
 books and with them this country was introduced to the 
 second method of instruction — the textbook method. 
 Even today legal education is imparted through these 
 methods in many law schools of the United States, 
 "sometimes without change from the old ways, some- 
 times again with all sorts of improvement in detail." 5 
 But in most of the university law schools they have been 
 replaced by a newer one introduced by Langdell into the 
 Harvard Law School in 1871 — the Case Method — con- 
 cerning the merits of which immediately there arose 
 great controversy "about it and about," but which was 
 destined shortly to give a new impetus to legal education 
 and, particularly, to that brand of it that is taught in the 
 universities. 
 
 That the case method of study was a great pedagogic 
 advance, very few today will gainsay. It has fitted into 
 the scheme of our law because our law is for the most 
 part case law. The common law is "judge-made law." 
 While those countries which have built their superstruc- 
 ture of law on a Roman foundation have been able to 
 evolve a system of abstract law, the common law "has 
 never passed beyond this relatively fluid condition of 
 'judge-made law'." Langdell's great contribution lay in 
 the fact that in the case method of instruction, he car- 
 ried out a very logical idea, by means of which the stu- 
 dent studied source material — the cases which are the 
 very warp and woof of our law. The method placed in 
 the hands of the student that material which was best 
 suited for a study of the common law. 
 
 6 Prof. Redlich's Report to the Carnegie Foundation, The Common Law and 
 the Case Method, (1914), p. 7. 
 
Further, the case method of study gave a distinctly 
 professional cast to law study and since it deals with 
 source material it stands in relief against the background 
 of the unscientific lecture and textbook methods. It 
 lifted the study of law to an equal footing with the study 
 of medicine, where experimental methods and source 
 material had for some time been used. To continue in 
 the words of Professor Redlich of the University of 
 Vienna, that keen observer who in 1915 made a careful 
 study of the case method for the Carnegie Corporation : 6 
 
 It emphasizes the scientific character of legal thought; it goes 
 now a step further, however, and demands that law, just because 
 it is a science, must also be taught scientifically. . . Consequently 
 as the method was developed, it laid the main emphasis upon pre- 
 cisely that aspect of the training which the older textbook school 
 entirely neglected: the training of the student in intellectual inde- 
 pendence, in individual thinking, in digging out the principles 
 through penetrating analysis of the material found within separate 
 cases: material which contains, all mixed in with one another both 
 the facts, as life creates them, which generate the law, and at the 
 same time rules of the law itself, component parts of the general 
 system. 
 
 The pedagogical qualities of this method, it is believed, 
 are unexcelled. Every instructor has his own methods 
 through which he seeks to interest, to communicate, and 
 to incite thinking. The following may be taken as typical 
 of the case method. Student M is called upon for a reci- 
 tation. He gives his understanding of the facts, issues 
 and legal principles involved. Then follow a series of 
 questions by the instructor, at first, as a rule, dealing only 
 with the instant case, through which he seeks, skillfully 
 or not, depending on whether he is a ten- or a one-talent 
 man, to draw a statement of the principles of the case 
 from the student. All the while the instructor is careful 
 to avoid any dogmatic statement by himself. One test 
 of an instructor's skill lies in his ability, through a cross- 
 fire of questions, to extract information from the stu- 
 dent. Ingenious, indeed, is he who can stimulate the 
 
 *Ibid., p. 39. 
 
 -{16}- 
 
student through a series of questions to announce with 
 a fair degree of accuracy a legal principle and withal to 
 leave the impression that the answer was entirely the 
 result of the student's own thinking. But the process is 
 not permitted to rest here; discriminations, so vital to 
 good legal thinking, are yet to be made; the instructor 
 follows up the discussion on the instant case with several 
 well chosen hypothetical questions by means of which 
 the student is tantalized into drawing distinctions and 
 analogies. Presently other students are drawn into the 
 discussion; soon a fair portion of the class is involved 
 with the arguments ever gathering in momentum, and 
 now the instructor must call upon yet other talents ; skill 
 is required to incite the curiosity and the thinking pro- 
 cesses of a class, and skill equally is demanded to keep 
 the discussion directed along proper channels and finally 
 to stop it and to pass to new problems. Woe unto the 
 instructor who does not possess it ! The whole process, 
 if well done, is exhilerating, nay, it is superb pedagogy ! 
 That this method of instruction has been a distinct 
 advancement in the process of legal education, there can 
 no longer be any doubt. But to accept it as fetish and to 
 regard it as sufficient as the summa summarum of a legal 
 training, perhaps, is to make as great a mistake as not to 
 accept it at all. Its strength lies in the fact that it sharp- 
 ens the intellect for close thinking and that it cultivates 
 an ability to reason by analogy. But this in turn ex- 
 poses a weakness in that it does not tend to inculcate a 
 philosophical way of thinking and to impress upon the 
 mind of the pupil an appraisal of the place and function 
 of the law in the social structure. With the case method 
 of study the student is likely to work entirely within the 
 law, making a distinction here, refining another there, 
 but never to dig his way out so that he may view the 
 contours of the law in relief. This feature should not 
 be minimized for it signifies the difference between the 
 
 -f 17 y 
 
workman and the architect. The case method tends to 
 train an artisan of the law but not a master-builder. 
 
 It cultivates logical thinking and with it legal acumen. 
 It is not so likely to lead the student to evaluate legal 
 principles. The fundamental purpose of law is to regu- 
 late human conduct. "It is true, I think, today in every 
 department of the Law," states Mr. Justice Cardozo, 
 "that the social value of a rule has become a test of 
 growing power and importance." 7 Law as taught in our 
 law schools today is apt to leave this feature neglected. 
 We polish up an old case, we deduct and, through pro- 
 cesses of legal logic, we attempt to make the old prin- 
 ciple fit a new situation. 8 We pride ourselves upon our 
 processes of reasoning but all the time we are apt merely 
 to be pouring new wine — I trust the figure is legitimate 
 — into old bottles. All this is useful and requires a cer- 
 tain amount of skill, and old bottles for the purpose are 
 better than no bottles, but as the years have rolled on not 
 unlikely some of the bottles have become antiquated and 
 clumsy and possibly, in the beginning, some were 
 wrought slightly awry. 
 
 It is a mistake to resort to case law exclusively in the 
 training of the lawyer for the further reason that the 
 cases, being based for the most part on precedent, fail to 
 give him a progressive viewpoint. The criticism is made 
 of the lawyer, and not without merit, that he is un- 
 imaginative and ultra-conservative. The reason for this 
 is not difficult to find since he works with his face to the 
 past. Whatever he may do at other times, in his profes- 
 sional life the lawyer moves among the ghostly and 
 spectral figures of antiquity. Is it to be imagined that a 
 lawyer ever had the temerity to arise and to address the 
 Court with the words, "Your Honor, I have an unpre- 
 cedented and new idea to expound to you this morning." 
 
 7 Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process, (1921), p. 73. 
 8 See an excellent article by Prof. Cook, Scientific Method and the Law, 
 (1927), 13 Am. Bar Assoc. J., p. 303. 
 
 i is }- 
 
Not very likely! Rather the good lawyer makes diligent 
 effort to present himself before the Court well weighted 
 down with hoary authorities excavated from the dim 
 past, and happy, indeed, is he, and esteemed by his 
 fellow members of the bar, who can arise and say, 
 "Your Honor, I have a case decided in the time of Ed- 
 ward I which governs the question before us." 9 No one 
 who has carefully thought on the subject will, I believe, 
 gainsay the great respect we owe in the law to precedent, 
 and yet to have no other gods before it is barely short of 
 calamitous. It is this sort of thinking that the case 
 method tends to perpetuate in the minds of each on- 
 coming generation. Against it we should make valiant 
 effort to guard ourselves. Were we to have a banquet of 
 the worthies in the law, and were I to invite the guests, 
 I should assign a seat at the table to Respectable Pre- 
 cedent, but the place of honor I should award to Mr. 
 Progress. 
 
 It is imperative that we cultivate this gentleman in 
 our law schools for, I fear, the lawyer looks upon him 
 with suspicion. While the legal profession has great 
 qualities of leadership in other respects, it has been 
 demonstrated repeatedly that we are not likely to find 
 in it a sufficient number of men of progressive qualities 
 who will conduct law reforms and who will be sympa- 
 thetic with new methods and views pertaining to the 
 law. 10 If we are to find these qualities in strength, we 
 must look for them in our leading law schools. It is the 
 responsibility and the privilege of our schools to furnish 
 this leadership. 
 
 In the medical profession, in business and industry, 
 and in technical and scientific work discoveries and new 
 ideas are acclaimed with applause. Much effort and time 
 is spent in testing and in scientific experimentation. Is 
 
 s See Train, On the Trail of the Bad Men, (1925), "Preface." 
 10 See Sunderland, The Evolution of Remedial Rights, (1925), Handbook of 
 the Association of American Law Schools, p. 62. 
 
 -{19}- 
 
it not likely that we who follow the law have much to 
 learn from them? I accept it as a thesis that we have. For 
 scientific achievement in the law we must seek to com- 
 bine, I take it, two cardinal features, namely, sound 
 theory and social value. And first I shall consider legal 
 theory, for it, as we shall see, has a seat among the in- 
 vited guests at our legal table. 
 
 Progressive attainments are possible, whatever may 
 be the field, only when preceded by sound theory. In 
 theory, we have the foundation for achievement. The 
 foundation is laid in thought, the sustaining strength of 
 which remains to be tested by experimentation and ob- 
 servation. Before legal theory can well begin to stir in 
 the human brain, the principles of the law, in all its 
 complex details, must have found firm lodgment there. 
 Case study is recommended without hesitation as the 
 method best suited for the implantation process. But 
 this is not in itself sufficient, for case study, as we have 
 seen, is apt to engage the mind with the inner details of 
 the law without furnishing a grasp of its social purposes 
 and functions. To acquire this requires the study of 
 jurisprudence and the philosophy of the law to discover 
 how it fits into the social scheme and where it touches 
 and overlaps with other fields, such as economics, psy- 
 chology, psychiatry, and sociology. 
 
 Legal theory, too, is not apt to thrive with a mind that 
 has not been trained in legal history. The study of legal 
 history is important if properly directed, but is useless 
 if it involves but the stirring of old ashes. What purpose 
 does it serve merely to know that in 1540 the Statute of 
 Wills was passed? A lesson is gained from this impor- 
 tant bit of legislation when the mind has grasped the 
 social forces at work which caused this act to be passed, 
 and how and to what extent the operation of the statute 
 promoted the public welfare. Similarly, why was the 
 embezzlement act passed ; what evils were sought to be 
 stopped by it, and to what extent did it remedy the situ- 
 
 i 20 }- 
 
ation? From history we gain an understanding of the 
 worth of rules. History, "in illuminating the past, illumi- 
 nates the present, and, in illuminating the present, illu- 
 minates the future." 11 
 
 We are tilling the soil for theory in our law schools 
 today, though we must confess with a lack of thorough- 
 ness in the fields of legal history and the philosophy of 
 the law. But is tilling soil to remain the extent of our 
 usefulness? The labors of a good husbandman, surely, 
 cannot cease there. He is watchful to guard against 
 weeds, with care he eliminates the weak and useless 
 plants, and, guided by patient observation and experi- 
 mentation, he takes pains to cultivate only those plants 
 that are fit. 
 
 The progressive methods of our time employed in dis- 
 covering merit and usefulness in other fields, whether it 
 be in husbandry, industry, or science, are those of ob- 
 servation and experimentation. For example, may we 
 note the procedure in the Bureau of Standards in Wash- 
 ington : 
 
 When a given product is under consideration, the Bureau of 
 Standards engineers first secure samples of all significant va- 
 rieties in the field and subject them to rigid tests, in order to de- 
 termine comparative quality. Thus, they inform themselves as to 
 the current status of the technical art covering that product. Next 
 they go into the field of pure theory and ask: What is the highest 
 quality obtainable; what is the perfect product; and what are the 
 reasonable limitations that prevent attaining perfection in commer- 
 cial manufacture ? Then the engineers, in committees of the Fed- 
 eral Specifications Board, representing the Government's interest 
 as a consumer as well as its technical experts, write a specification. 
 It is based both on theory and on the actual performance of the 
 available types. The specification represents the best type for the 
 purpose in hand as governed by the practicable limits of manu- 
 facturing and reasonable cost. The specification is then presented 
 to manufacturers for their bids, after an opportunity for criticism 
 and suggestion. When the manufacturer says — as he sometimes 
 does — that the requirements cannot be met, the Bureau's engineers 
 will either go out and show him how to do it — which has often hap- 
 
 n Cardozo, op. cit., p. 53. 
 
 i 21 }- 
 
pened — or, if he is right, they will lower the specification a notch or 
 two. 12 
 
 We have much to learn from these methods. It is not 
 inconceivable that similar methods can be employed in 
 the law, and that much improvement thereby can be 
 wrought. We cannot take a sample and work upon it as 
 the engineer, but with so many jurisdictions to draw 
 upon as we have in this country for experimental pur- 
 poses, we have a fertile field for observation and for data. 
 Law has advanced but little beyond syllogistic reason- 
 ing, for that is the essence of case study. The newer 
 method would be based upon sound theory tested by 
 experience and observation. 
 
 May we take as an illustration the problem relating 
 to the most effective method of dealing with the con- 
 victed criminal. Here is a complex question over which 
 law, criminology, penology, and psychiatry overlap. A 
 worker in this field would need to become acquainted 
 with all the theories extant concerning it. Following 
 this, if he is to work intelligently, he would not weigh 
 these theories by a process of reasoning operating be- 
 hind closed doors, but would judge them by their results. 
 This would require the careful tabulation of data on 
 each, to be followed by a comparison of the results ob- 
 tained, and from these he would draw his conclusions. 
 This, the empiric method, would demand of him that he 
 pursue his studies into actual life where he would work 
 with living and concrete data. His labors complete, he 
 would be in a position to reveal scientific conclusions 
 and to lead the way with suggestions for improvement. 
 
 This, I believe, to be the new vineyard for the law 
 teacher. This, I believe, to be the new method with 
 which the law teacher is obligated to first acquaint and 
 familiarize himself and then to impart to his students. 
 If the lawyer is to wrestle with the ever increasing com- 
 plexities of modern life ; if he is to withstand the storm 
 
 12 Chase and Schlink, Your Money's Worthy (1927), p. 62. 
 
 -{ 22 }- 
 
of criticism which the public is levelling at the profes- 
 sion; if he is to cope with the growing feeling that the 
 law is obsolete and not adaptable to the present needs of 
 our people, and if he is to reclaim a semblance of order 
 from the chaos caused by overweighted and haphazard 
 legislation, newer and more scientific methods must be 
 employed in his education. The old machinery of the 
 law will not draw the load. Other agencies of civilization 
 have adapted themselves to new conditions ; it remains 
 for the legal profession to wheel in line. It is the privi- 
 lege and the responsibility of the law teachers to lead the 
 way. 
 
 -{ 23 }■ 
 
Address 
 OBLIGATIONS OF A STATE COLLEGE OF LAW 
 
 Fred L. Wham 
 
 Judge of the United States District Court 
 Eastern District of Illinois 
 
In every man's life, there is from time to time an 
 event which stands out because to him it marks an 
 ambition realized or a hope fulfilled. To me, the 
 dedication of this beautiful and distinctive building al- 
 ready rich in history and associations, as the Law Build- 
 ing is such an event. On this occasion, when the ex- 
 pression of a certain amount of sentiment is to be ex- 
 pected, I hope that I may not be regarded as foolishly 
 sentimental, when I say that as a student here, I grew 
 to love this school with a deep and abiding love. To me 
 it is a real Alma Mater. I came to her empty handed, 
 and she sent me forth armed with tools for building a 
 life. Dean Harker was like a father to me, and my 
 teachers were as kind and helpful as brothers. 
 
 And going out from the men and from the school that 
 had done so much for me, could I forget and become in- 
 different to her and her welfare ? Obviously I could not, 
 nor could the hundreds of other alumni whose experi- 
 ences here were similar to mine. To us, "The Old 
 Grads," who have followed with keen interest the strug- 
 gle of our old School upward into her own, and have, 
 from time to time, been privileged to help a little here 
 and boost a little there, this occasion is indeed significant 
 and full of meaning. It is the final proof that our Alma 
 Mater has at least escaped the deadening clutches of 
 mediocrity, and has climbed to the heights among the 
 superior. No longer need we hesitate to admit that we 
 are from the College of Law of the University of Illinois, 
 but now we will hasten to tell it wherever we may. 
 
 To one who looks at this flourishing institution as it 
 is today, second in numbers among all the great state 
 law schools of the land and second to none in quality of 
 work and instruction, it is difficult to conceive that only 
 a few short years ago, it was actually struggling for ex- 
 istence, and fighting to justify its rights to exist. While 
 I would not enter into a discussion of its early trials and 
 
 ■i 27 }- 
 
difficulties, for the purpose of this address, I will recall 
 that even in my day, as a student here, the argument 
 was advanced by many thinking people that a law school 
 had no proper place in a tax supported institution. Pre- 
 sumably, this argument was based upon the theory that 
 education in the law fits the recipient solely to follow 
 the profession of the law for his own benefit, and cannot 
 possibly be of value to the State so as to justify the use 
 of tax money for such a purpose. I shall refer again to 
 this argument. 
 
 As is true of every institution which is founded and 
 fashioned under circumstances of stress, the College of 
 Law of the University of Illinois has built into it more 
 or less of the lives of many devoted men. On this oc- 
 casion, I am sure that it will not be inappropriate for me 
 as an appreciative alumnus of the institution briefly to 
 mention some of these men whom I had the privilege of 
 knowing and knowing about. 
 
 Naturally, I think, the outstanding figure in the minds 
 of us who love Illinois with special allegiance to the Col- 
 lege of Law is that loyal, unsurpassed friend of all, Judge 
 Harker. Not only was Judge Harker intimately con- 
 nected with the origin and organization of the College of 
 Law, but for more than a quarter of a century, he has 
 devoted his entire life to it. Upon his shoulders, it was, 
 that rested most of the burden of overcoming the early 
 prejudices against the Law School and securing for it its 
 right to exist. And never did a cause have an advocate 
 more able or more courageous. A man less courageous 
 and less persistent might well have become disheartened, 
 but with a clear vision of the high destiny of the insti- 
 tution, and with sublime faith in final victory, Judge 
 Harker never ceased to strive for its upbuilding until his 
 efforts were rewarded with complete success. I am sure 
 that this occasion is one of the happiest of his life, and I 
 know that every alumnus of Illinois joins with me when 
 
 •| 28 }- 
 
I say "God Bless Judge Harker, and grant him many 
 more years of happy life among us who love him." 
 
 The next man to whom my mind turns, especially in 
 point of time, is that outstanding figure in the affairs of 
 our nation, who has so graciously come home to help 
 celebrate this event. I refer to Dr. James Brown Scott, 
 the first dean of this Law School. Surely if ever a great 
 future was presaged for a new organization by the dis- 
 tinctive character of its first leader, the naming of the 
 scholarly James Brown Scott as the first dean of the 
 Law School was prophetic of the present occasion. To 
 the thinking person who has paused to analyze the his- 
 tory of this law school, it is clear that Dean Scott's 
 early ideals of scholarship and constructive thought 
 which have been so eminently wrought out in his own 
 subsequent career, left an indelible impression upon the 
 new institution. 
 
 I must not fail to mention another faithful friend and 
 servant of the College of Law under whom it was my 
 privilege to study, and who is yet, a distinguished figure 
 in the faculty. I refer to that profound student and 
 teacher of constitutional law, Professor Frederick Green. 
 The long period of his faithful and able service in the 
 School has made him part and parcel of it, and to him 
 is due, in no small measure, its high ideals and worthy 
 traditions. Professor Green will always be remembered 
 with affection by all who have studied under him, and 
 counted as one of the really effective builders of the 
 College of Law of the University of Illinois. 
 
 In recent years, the College of Law has had the ad- 
 vantage of the leadership of a truly exceptional executive 
 in the person of Dean Albert J. Harno. To him all pay 
 tribute of praise today, for we know that this occasion 
 marks the success of his well-laid plans and the realiza- 
 tion of his fondest hopes for the institution which has 
 been given into his keeping. As I have met and talked 
 with Dean Harno from time to time, and have watched 
 
 i 29 }- 
 
with growing interest and pride and joy his achieve- 
 ments for my old School, it has seemed to me that he 
 possesses in a superlative degree, the qualities of a great 
 educational leader and executive. 
 
 I cannot leave the discussion of the men who made 
 this College of Law without referring briefly to the 
 President of the University. By his many years of able 
 and devoted service, President Kinley has built himself 
 into the University, even as Judge Harker has built him- 
 self into the College of Law. In President Kinley, the 
 College of Law has ever had a stanch friend. Nowhere 
 is this better demonstrated than in the wise provision 
 for its present and future needs which we are celebrating 
 today, and in the recent action of the Board of Trustees 
 in advancing its educational standard to equal that of 
 the best of the other and older colleges of law. In my 
 humble judgment, which I believe to be backed up by 
 actual events, the College of Law has in President Kin- 
 ley and Dean Harno a combination of leadership which 
 cannot be surpassed. 
 
 The College of Law having successfully passed the day 
 when doubts need be entertained concerning its com- 
 parative standing among the law colleges of the land, let 
 us examine again the question raised by its early oppo- 
 nents as to whether the training of its lawyers is a proper 
 function of a state and, if so, what duties and obligations 
 such training imposes upon those who receive it. 
 
 It was always puzzling to me when I tried to under- 
 stand why a state should not be interested and inter- 
 ested deeply in the education of its lawyers. One need 
 but read the history of the past and look about him at 
 the present to know the tremendous part which the law- 
 yer has played and continues to play in every political 
 and civil movement in the land. These matters are too 
 well-known and too often discussed to require more than 
 to be mentioned, except to point out that the lawyer's 
 influence is not confined to the practice of law and to 
 
 i 30 }- 
 
making constitutions and laws, but extends with almost 
 controlling force into every nook of the daily life and 
 daily thought of our people. Whenever and wherever a 
 problem is presented, be it in the club, in the lodge, in 
 the Chamber of Commerce, in the community meeting, 
 or in the church, the people instinctively turn to the law- 
 yer for advice and counsel. If a speech is required, the 
 lawyer is the first man called upon whether it be a re- 
 ligious, fraternal, business, or political meeting. Law- 
 yers are not usually looked upon as a particularly re- 
 ligious type, but in my Judicial Circuit, all three of the 
 Circuit Judges are active and interested teachers of 
 men's Bible classes, and in my city, five out of ten active 
 lawyers are teachers of Bible classes and another has 
 been the superintendent of a large Sunday School for 
 eight years. This is but an illustration of the manner in 
 which the people in every line of worthy endeavor, 
 though it be entirely apart from the natural trend of a 
 lawyer's thought and activity, turn to the profession for 
 their leadership. 
 
 This dependence of the public upon the lawyer can 
 only be explained as being a recognition of the superior 
 fitness of the lawyer for places of leadership because of 
 his special training. It is a recognition of his power and 
 courage to think independently, to think a problem 
 through, and to guide others in their thoughts to a logi- 
 cal and safe conclusion. I know a young lawyer with a 
 very lucrative practice who derives a large part of his 
 income from fees for advice and counsel to the leading 
 business men of his community; and strange to say it 
 is not principally with their legal business that these 
 men come to him, but rather with their knotty business 
 and financial problems. It is almost an every day experi- 
 ence for him to have some business man, with a hundred 
 times more practical business experience than he, and 
 who is looked upon by the public as being the last word 
 in business acumen and wisdom, come to him with an 
 
 -i 3i y 
 
intricate financial or business problem, with an apparent 
 confidence that that lawyer will be able to guide the 
 business man to a safe conclusion in a purely business 
 matter. This lawyer says that he makes his money by 
 doing other peoples thinking for them. It was DeToc- 
 quiville who said in substance, that the legal profession 
 represents the only aristocracy in America, the aristoc- 
 racy of thinking leadership. 
 
 An old wag in our county used to tell a story which 
 illustrates the strange feeling of distrust and dependence 
 which laymen have toward lawyers. One layman having 
 recently lost a small law suit wound up a vicious tirade 
 against the lawyers by saying, "One thing is sure, no 
 lawyer will ever get to heaven." The second layman re- 
 plied, "No doubt you're right about that, but I imagine 
 that most of them will be just outside of the gate doing 
 their best to help the rest of us get in." 
 
 Few, I think, will endeavor to dispute the statement 
 that lawyers are, or should be, the most influential group 
 of citizens in every community, as well as in the state, 
 and in the nation, and if I read the times aright, their 
 influence is growing as time passes. Their opportunities 
 for molding public opinion are so many and so constant, 
 that any movement which receives their united support 
 could scarcely be resisted. 
 
 It is obvious, therefore, that no task that the state can 
 enter upon is of more vital importance to itself and to 
 the nation than the education of its lawyers. In my 
 judgment, the State of Illinois is to be commended for 
 making ample provision for its Law School, and to be 
 congratulated upon its sagacity and farsightedness in 
 seeing to it that its most influential group of citizens are 
 trained under the hand and eye of men who are chosen 
 for their special fitness for their task of fashioning men 
 into leaders of the right sort. 
 
 In view of the fact that its graduates will, in a large 
 measure, help to shape the future trend of thought in 
 
 i 32 y 
 
their respective communities in Illinois, and in many 
 cases the trend of the nation's thinking, surely it is only 
 by producing men of high ideals, sound political con- 
 victions, and unswerving loyalty that this College of 
 Law can meet its obligations to the State and truly 
 justify its existence. Clearly it is not enough that this 
 state institution give its students a thorough technical 
 training, though such training is positively essential. It 
 is not enough that its graduates should leave this School 
 equipped to compete on equal terms or better with the 
 graduates of other schools in the practice of their pro- 
 fession, though I am sure we will be satisfied with noth- 
 ing less than that. The students in this School must 
 over and above their technical training be fashioned into 
 real men who appreciate that through the bounty of the 
 State, they are being endowed with a tremendous power 
 to serve, and that their first duty is to the State. They 
 must be imbued with a deep and lasting love and rever- 
 ence for the constitution and laws such as only those 
 can have who know and appreciate their cost and value. 
 Herein lies the true mission of this College of Law, and 
 if it can but catch the vision and be true to its mission, 
 it will not only justify its existence but its ever growing 
 body of graduates will increasingly become a mighty 
 force for the preservation of our nation. 
 
 And never was the nation's need for such support 
 greater than now. We are living in mighty times. Times 
 when the thought and genius of man have burst the 
 bonds of old limitations. Man is marvelously learning 
 to know the hitherto unknowable and to exercise domin- 
 ion over forces hitherto beyond control. Intoxicated by 
 his new freedom, all limitations have become irksome 
 and liberty is meaningless to him, if it exacts as its price 
 obedience to law. So engrossed is he in attaining and 
 enjoying new power, and control over things material, 
 that he has no time to rule and no disposition to be 
 ruled. The unusual learning of the day in the arts and 
 
 4 33 }■ 
 
sciences, appears to be more than counterbalanced, even 
 among our so called educated classes, by an appalling 
 ignorance concerning the sources of our Government 
 and their own responsibilities in and to it. Their ignor- 
 ance in this respect is equalled only by their lack of ap- 
 preciation of their utter dependence on the government 
 for their protection in the enjoyment of life and prop- 
 erty. This decade and that just past will go down in the 
 history of our nation as a period when the privileges of 
 free government were enjoyed without thought of their 
 cost or meaning and without effort to teach the rising 
 generation their cost or meaning. Those whose duty it 
 was to teach have been so busily engaged in the enjoy- 
 ment of the present and so eagerly endeavoring to an- 
 ticipate the future, that they have lost sight of, or 
 ignored, their debt to the past and their responsibility to 
 the present and the future. The inevitable result is seen 
 in the present chaotic condition which prevails in the 
 minds of our citizens, making them easy prey to false 
 doctrines and misleading propaganda. It is reflected by 
 a growing disrespect and irreverence for the Constitu- 
 tion and laws and an alarming increase in crimes of 
 violence. 
 
 The increase in crime rates has been followed by out- 
 cries from many quarters charging the conditions to the 
 laxity of law enforcement and urging the courts and of- 
 ficers to remedy the situation by rigid enforcement of 
 the laws. Then, having performed their duty as they 
 conceive it by passing the problems on to the courts and 
 the officers of the law for solution, these same parties in 
 many instances go about their business and hesitate 
 not at all to join the hue and cry against the laws they 
 do not like and to violate or to aid and abet in the vio- 
 lation of such laws. With support like that, it cannot 
 be hoped that courts and officers of the law will be able 
 to control the crime situation in this country, however 
 diligent and conscientious may be their efforts. Every 
 
 -{ 34 }- 
 
one agrees that it is the duty of the courts and the offi- 
 cers to use their utmost endeavors to see that every law 
 is enforced as written, keeping in mind, of course, that 
 the first obligation of the courts is to administer justice 
 under the law. 
 
 I want to urge here today, however, that an effective 
 solution of our crime problem can never be found in law 
 enforcement alone. The effective solution must precede 
 the necessity for law enforcement and eliminate the de- 
 sire to violate the law. It must be found in the education 
 of our citizens. Basically, this education must first be 
 wisely calculated to build the sterling qualities of char- 
 acter in our citizens, for in the end the survival of any 
 government, particularly a democracy, is utterly de- 
 pendent upon the character of its people. Secondly, this 
 education must give to the citizens a thorough under- 
 standing of the theory and principle of our government, 
 and above all, an understanding and appreciation of the 
 fact and privilege of self-government. Add to this a vivid 
 conception of the hundreds of years of struggle and sac- 
 rifice which it took to attain this privilege and we will 
 have a citizen whose attitude toward the law cannot rea- 
 sonably be other than a feeling of respect and reverence 
 and a disposition to obey. 
 
 In Illinois, our ideal of a citizen and statesman is our 
 own Abraham Lincoln. In matters of government we 
 hang upon his words and follow with implicit faith his 
 teachings. Let me quote to you a familiar page from 
 his speech on "The Perpetuation of our Political Insti- 
 tutions" delivered when he was only 28 years of age but 
 which might well be looked upon as the keynote of his 
 great life of devotion to his country. 
 
 Listen ! 
 
 Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to 
 his posterity swear by the blood of the Revolution never to violate 
 in the least particular the laws of the country, and never to tolerate 
 their violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the 
 support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of 
 
 -{ 35 }- 
 
the Constitution and laws let every American pledge his life, his 
 property and his sacred honor. Let every man remember that to 
 violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear 
 the charter of his own and his children's liberty. Let reverence 
 for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping 
 babe that prattles on her lap; let it be taught in schools, in sem- 
 inaries and colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling books, and 
 in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legis- 
 lative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short let it 
 become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the 
 young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay of all sexes and 
 tongues and colors and conditions sacrifice unceasingly upon its 
 altars. 
 
 While ever a state of feeling such as this shall universally or even 
 generally prevail throughout the nation, vain will be every effort and 
 fruitless every attempt subvert to our nation's freedom. 
 
 When I pressingly urge strict observance of all the laws, let me 
 be not understood as saying there are no bad laws. I mean to say 
 no such thing. But I do mean to say that although bad laws, if 
 they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still, while they 
 continue in force, for the sake of example they should be religiously 
 observed. 
 
 I stated that these words of Lincoln uttered in his 
 youth may well be looked upon as the keynote of his 
 life of devotion to his country. In like manner these 
 words may well become the inspiration of the life work 
 of every graduate of this institution. I have referred at 
 length to the strategic and controlling position of in- 
 fluence which the lawyer occupies. I have referred to his 
 unexcelled training for constructive thinking and lead- 
 ership which causes his people to turn to him for counsel 
 and guidance. Add to this his intimate knowledge of the 
 history and philosophy of free government, its costs, 
 privileges, and responsibilities, and it becomes evident 
 that in addition to his opportunity for lofty service 
 through the conscientious performance of his profes- 
 sional duties, he has the opportunity and power beyond 
 measure to serve his nation as a teacher of his fellow 
 men ; who will say that I am overstating the truth when 
 I add, that to a graduate of a state institution, power to 
 
 i 36 }- 
 
serve plus opportunity to serve means obligation to 
 serve. 
 
 And hasn't it always been true that the teachers have 
 ultimately been the controlling factors in every civiliza- 
 tion and every age? In keeping with this historic fact, 
 have not the teachers in the great state law colleges of 
 our land the power and the blessed privilege of literally 
 preserving for future ages the institutions of free gov- 
 ernment by molding and developing the men and 
 women who sit as disciples at their feet into apostles of 
 democracy? 
 
 I know that this opportunity and obligation has not 
 in the past and is not now being overlooked by our 
 teachers of law, but I do believe that the trend of the 
 times makes it essential that as the days go by, increas- 
 ing attention and devotion shall be given to this great 
 task. What will it profit us in the end for our law schools 
 to develop lawyers of superlative efficiency if our people 
 have no respect or regard for the law and no understand- 
 ing or appreciation of their obligation to the law? But 
 with the power possessed by the legal profession to teach 
 and control public thought and action, and with the 
 training of the embryo lawyers being completely in the 
 hands of our law schools it is clear that if our teachers 
 of the law can only realize and faithfully improve their 
 opportunity and obligation to furnish the necessary 
 ground work and inspiration for those leaders of men, 
 then, and not until then, the future of our government 
 will be secure and we can say with our beloved Lincoln, 
 "vain will be every effort and fruitless every attempt to 
 subvert our nation's freedom." 
 
 i 37 y 
 
Address 
 
 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE COLLEGE 
 OF LAW 
 
 Oliver Albert Harker 
 
 Former Dean of the College of Law 
 
Wi 
 
 hen i was invited by the program committee 
 to present a paper for this occasion on the 
 growth and development of the College of 
 Law, I was told that I had been so selected chiefly for 
 the reason that I have in some capacity been connected 
 with the Law School ever since it was organized. I re- 
 gret exceedingly that my absence from the University 
 and the serious illness of Mrs. Harker in a hospital at 
 Carbondale has prevented a formal paper. I must rely 
 therefore upon an extemporaneous talk to be made from 
 notes which I have before me. 
 
 ORIGIN 
 
 During the administration of Dr. Peabody there was 
 some informal talk in a session of the Board of Trustees 
 concerning the opening of a law school. Three members 
 of the Board were quite earnest in desiring that such a 
 school be established. It met the decided opposition of 
 Dr. Peabody, then a member of the Board of Trustees, 
 as Regent and Dr. Edwards, State Superintendent of 
 Public Instruction. Other members were opposed be- 
 cause of lack of funds. 
 
 Dr. T. J. Burrill, who as acting Regent, succeeded Dr. 
 Peabody, favored the proposition and so declared at a 
 meeting of the Trustees in December 1891 ; and at the 
 March meeting of the Board in 1892 he presented a pe- 
 tition signed by a number of students enrolled in the 
 University asking for the establishment of a depart- 
 ment of law. In the presentationship of the petition 
 Dr. Burrill urged early action, and at the same session 
 Mr. Alex McClain, one of the three trustees who first 
 advocated the establishment of such a school, offered a 
 resolution urging the obtaining of legislative aid for the 
 establishment of such a department. No legislative ac- 
 tion was taken, however. At that time it was quite dif- 
 ficult to secure any kind of an appropriation for the 
 
 4 41 }- 
 
University and there was but little sentiment in that 
 body for the establishment of professional schools. 
 
 Shortly after Dr. Draper became president of the Uni- 
 versity he called into conference one of the men, who as 
 trustee had favored the establishment of a law school 
 when Dr. Peabody was Regent, and stated that if the 
 State of Illinois was to have a University, in fact as well 
 as in name, it should establish a medical school and a 
 law school. With the determination, characteristic of 
 the man, at the December meeting in 1896 he presented 
 to the Board of Trustees the following : 
 
 The time has arrived when it seems to me that the interests of 
 the University imperatively demand that the Board shall take de- 
 cided steps looking to the organization of a Law School. This can 
 be established here without very great difficulty or expense. In 
 order to insure it at the opening of the next University year I 
 recommend: 
 
 1. That the Board appropriate $3,500 for the salaries of in- 
 structors during the year 1897-98. 
 
 2. That the Board appropriate $3,000 for the purchase of books. 
 
 3. That the Board appropriate $500 for any other expenses 
 necessarily incurred in this connection. 
 
 4. That the President be authorized and requested to present to 
 the Board, at as early a date as practicable, detailed plans for the 
 contemplated School. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 A. S. Draper, 
 
 President. 
 
 At that meeting it was voted to establish a Law School 
 and appropriations were made therefore as recom- 
 mended. 
 
 It would seem that an appropriation of seven thous- 
 and dollars for the salaries of law professors, the pur- 
 chase of a library, and other equipment was rather 
 meager. Several professors in the Law School at this 
 time are receiving salaries in excess of that amount. Un- 
 der the liberal policy recommended by President Kinley 
 there was expended in salaries alone $61,000. 
 
 -4 42 }- 
 
PHYSICAL EQUIPMENT 
 
 When it was decided to open the School the assign- 
 ment of rooms became a serious problem. Three were 
 assigned in the University Hall, one of which was used 
 to house the library and for use also as a practice court 
 room, and two other rooms for the purpose of lecture 
 and recitation. The School opened in September 1897 
 with Dr. Draper as acting dean and Professors G. E. 
 Gardner and C. C. Pickett as instructors. Formal 
 opening exercises were held in the old University Hall 
 Chapel to which prominent lawyers and judges of the 
 State were invited. The principal speaker was Judge 
 Wilkins, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Illinois. 
 In these meager quarters the Law School continued un- 
 til the construction of a new chemical laboratory was 
 completed. An appropriation was then made for the re- 
 modeling of the old chemical laboratory into a Law 
 School. And in that building the department functioned 
 up to a few months ago. 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Starting with an appropriation of three thousand dol- 
 lars the library has increased from year to year. The 
 Board of Trustees has been quite liberal in the appro- 
 priations for such equipment and we now have a library 
 of some 40,000 volumes, valued in the neighborhood of 
 $200,000. I am proud to say that it is the best selected 
 library in the State and for practical purposes is not ex- 
 ceeded by a law school library in the country. 
 
 The fireproof book stack was constructed for the pur- 
 pose of taking care of 22,000 volumes. When the num- 
 ber had outgrown the capacity of the stackroom alter- 
 ations were made in the building and books were scat- 
 tered over various parts of the first and second floors. 
 The greatest embarrassment under which the depart- 
 ment labored was library room. Installed as we are in 
 this building we can easily take care of double the num- 
 
 -{43}- 
 
ber of volumes we already have. I have seen a great 
 number of law school buildings in the Middle West, 
 Pacific Coast, and in the South. I know of none better 
 adapted to law school work than this one. 
 
 FACULTY EQUIPMENT 
 
 During the time that President Draper was acting 
 dean other duties prevented his taking part in instruc- 
 tional work, that was left to Professors Gardner, Pickett, 
 Drew, and Hughes. 
 
 Dr. James Brown Scott was retained as dean in 1899 
 and held that position for four years. During his ad- 
 ministration he had under him as professors and in- 
 structors: Professors Pickett, Drew, Hughes, Tooke, 
 Northrup, and Dennis. 
 
 President Draper conceived the idea that the Law 
 School would grow in favor and interest by securing the 
 co-operation of judges of the various courts of the State. 
 His invitation to men holding judicial positions was cor- 
 dially accepted and resulted in outside lectures from 
 time to time and the conducting of a well organized 
 practice court. For six years moot court was held every 
 Saturday morning by one or the other of the three judges 
 of the Appellate Court of the Springfield Division. 
 
 Dr. Scott resigned in 1903 and I, upon the recom- 
 mendation of President Draper, was appointed his suc- 
 cessor. During the thirteen years that I served in that 
 capacity quite a number of law teachers were in service. 
 In addition to Professors Pickett, Drew, Hughes, North- 
 rup, and Dennis there came to us subsequently, Profes- 
 sor Frederick Green, still a member of the faculty, Pro- 
 fessors George L. Clark, Allen E. Rogers, Berry Gilbert, 
 T. B. Cosgrove, W. G. Hale, Edward H. Decker, Edward 
 S. Thurston, John N. Pomeroy, I. M. Wormser, C. G. 
 Vernier, Robert L. Hemy, James E. Carpenter. I re- 
 signed as dean in 1917 and Professor H. W. Ballantine 
 was appointed my successor. He continued for a period 
 
 -1 44 y 
 
of four years during which Professors W. E. Britton, a 
 graduate of the Law School, and Walter L. Summers 
 were added to the faculty. During the year following 
 the resignation of Professor Ballantine I again filled the 
 office of dean, and for the following year Professor H. C. 
 Jones was appointed dean. During his administration 
 Professors Hope, Harno, and Goble were added. After 
 the service of one year Dean Jones resigned to become 
 dean of his native state, Iowa, and Professor Harno was 
 selected as dean. 
 
 The department has labored under considerable em- 
 barrassment because of lack of funds to retain some of 
 the best professors named. Larger salaries were offered 
 by other institutions and for that reason we lost such 
 excellent teachers as Thurston, Vernier, Hale, Decker, 
 Ballantine, and others. 
 
 STUDENT ATTENDANCE 
 
 The School opened with an enrollment of twenty- 
 seven. At that time the only entrance requirement or 
 requirement to be a candidate for the law degree was 
 four years work in an accredited high school. When the 
 School was established there was no preliminary educa- 
 tion requirement for a candidate for admission to the 
 bar. Much of the instruction was given in law offices 
 at that time. The only requirement was two years of 
 law study which entitled the candidate to an examina- 
 tion. The examination before that time, according to 
 statement of older lawyers, was rather perfunctory. The 
 young man desiring to enter the profession became a 
 student in the office of some practicioner. After he had 
 studied for two years the lawyer with whom he had read 
 would make a motion to the Circuit Judge for the ap- 
 pointment of a committee to examine the applicant. The 
 Judge accordingly appointed three lawyers, usually non- 
 residents. At the appointed time the candidate entered 
 the hotel room of one of the lawyers, equipped with 
 
 -{ 45 }■ 
 
cigars and certain liquid refreshments. After the liquid 
 refreshments had been sampled and while the examiners 
 were smoking, the applicant was asked what books he 
 had read, and the length of time which he had remained 
 in the office of the practicioner. After answering these 
 questions he was asked if he thought he had sufficient 
 knowledge to give a client legal advice and to conduct 
 his case in court. Of course, the answer was in the af- 
 firmative. The next morning the committee with due 
 solemnity reported that they had made full examination 
 of the applicant and found him qualified to practice the 
 profession. A certificate of the Judge and State's Attor- 
 ney was then forwarded to the Supreme Court and a 
 license to practice law followed. Of course when this 
 Law School was established that was not the method of 
 conducting the examination. Examinations were held 
 before the Appellate Court of the various districts of the 
 State. Subsequently the Supreme Court adopted what is 
 known as rule 39 relating to the admission to the bar, 
 whereby an applicant was to be examined by a board of 
 five examiners. The preliminary education required un- 
 der the rule was to be equal to that of a graduate of an 
 Illinois high school, not a very strict requirement be- 
 cause there were many so-called high schools in the 
 State doing no better work than grade schools. Repre- 
 sentatives from this School, University of Chicago Law 
 School, and Northwestern Law School petitioned the 
 Supreme Court to change the rule so as to require the 
 preliminary education to consist of four years of work 
 in a high school accredited by the University of Illinois. 
 That was the rule that then obtained in the University. 
 The Supreme Court referred the matter to the Chief 
 Justice with power to act, but the Chief Justice because 
 of opposition of other law schools in the State declined 
 to act. I am proud to say that this School has always 
 insisted upon extended preliminary education. Shortly 
 after I became dean our faculty recommended not only 
 
 -{ 46 }- 
 
the four years of high school training but also the addi- 
 tion of two years of college work of a candidate for the 
 law degree. This department with the aid of the Board 
 of Bar Examiners kept at the Supreme Court to raise the 
 preliminary education requirement to that, and today 
 rule 39 requires the candidate for admission to the bar 
 to have not only the four years in a high school but also 
 two years in a reputable college of the State. We feel 
 that we have accomplished something in the direction of 
 raising the standard. 
 
 Before 1903 the attendance had not been over seventy. 
 The enrollment increased during the time that the four 
 years requirement was new so that the enrollment one 
 year amounted to two hundred and fourteen. When the 
 additional requirement of two years of college work was 
 established it had the effect of decreasing the attendance. 
 Students coming to the University were first required to 
 earn sixty credits before entering the Law School. For 
 the first two or three years the enrollment decreased 
 from two hundred to something less than one hundred. 
 The school has grown in favor, however, to such an ex- 
 tent that the enrollment is now four hundred. President 
 Kinley and the Board of Trustees have maintained a 
 very liberal attitude toward the department. Salaries 
 paid compare favorably with the best law schools in the 
 country. They are above what the most of the law 
 schools are now paying. I can say without embarrass- 
 ment, because I am now on the retired list, that we have 
 as strong a faculty as in any law school in the country. 
 Our salaries are such that we hope to retain the good 
 men we now have. 
 
 The College of Law entertains considerable pride be- 
 cause of the success of its graduates after being admitted 
 to the bar. A few years ago while I attended a joint session 
 of the Illinois State's Attorney Association and the Illi- 
 nois State Society on Criminal Law and Criminology, I 
 found in attendance twenty-five graduates of this School 
 
 1 47 y 
 
that were filling the office of either State's Attorney or 
 Assistant State's Attorney in the State. Several of our 
 graduates have been elected to Congress, quite a number 
 to the State Senate and House of Representatives, a 
 number to the position of Circuit Judge in the State. 
 One is a Judge of the Supreme Court of Illinois, another 
 Judge of the Supreme Court of North Dakota, and an- 
 other of the Supreme Court of China. Both the judges 
 of the United States Court for this district, Judges Lind- 
 ley and Wham, are graduates of this School. The United 
 States District Attorney and his two assistants are also 
 graduates of this School. The fine record which our 
 graduates have made, has enlisted the support of the 
 lawyers of the State pretty generally for the School. It 
 has been the constant policy of those engaged in this 
 department to bring the School in as close affiliation 
 with the law making powers of the State and the State 
 Bar Association as possible. I think that has been duly 
 appreciated because frequently within the last fifteen 
 or twenty years members of our faculty have appeared 
 on invitation before legislative committees in Springfield 
 to discuss mooted questions of court procedure and 
 other proposed legislation. During all that time mem- 
 bers of our faculty have been selected as members of 
 many committees of the State Bar Association. 
 
 If the liberal policy exhibited by President Kinley and 
 the Board of Trustees with reference to this school con- 
 tinues, I feel that its prospects are better than ever be- 
 fore. 
 
 4 48 y 
 
Address 
 
 LAW AS A PROFESSION AND AN ART 
 
 James Brown Scott 
 
 First Dean of the College of Law 
 
 Trustee and Secretary of the Carnegie 
 
 Endowment for International Peace 
 
It is customary, on occasions such as this, to speak 
 of the law — often of its teaching, and assuredly of 
 the rewards, whether in the form of wealth or of 
 political or social position, which are in store for the 
 successful practitioner. I take it for granted that the 
 strangers who visit the University, and who are honored 
 with an invitation to address law students, can be 
 trusted to acquit themselves of what I am inclined to 
 think, is expected of them in this line. In any event, I 
 shall not attempt to compete with them. In times past, 
 I have said something of these matters, although I have 
 never, here or elsewhere, held up to young men and 
 women on the threshold of their careers, the "golden 
 calf" for worship ; nor have I ever intimated that the re- 
 ward of success is to be measured in the coin of the 
 realm. It is at best but one form of success, and not of 
 the highest type. Rather would my ambition be that 
 your lives be many-sided ; that every day may bring you 
 something which was not yours before, as it assuredly 
 will, even if you, yourselves, give to others more of the 
 things of the spirit than you receive from them. 
 
 Some there are who make their own environment as 
 well as that of ours ; and we can never be over grateful 
 for their labors, of which we are too often the uncon- 
 scious beneficiaries. In the lifetime of my dear friend, 
 and your honored President, who is still vibrating with 
 that intellectual energy which he generously communi- 
 cates to all with whom he comes into contact, this Uni- 
 versity has come into being — once a few barren acres, 
 converted into the center and guardian of a growing and 
 indigenous civilization. 
 
 Of this University — our French friends would call it 
 la cite univer sit aire — the College of Law is an integral 
 part. Its students may avail themselves of its courses in 
 preparation for law, or in connection with its actual 
 study, in so far as their instructors are of the opinion 
 
 -f 51J- 
 
that culture is not amiss in the lawyer, and that art and 
 literature and the things of the spirit are not wholly 
 alien to its practice. 
 
 Some twenty-eight years ago, when I had the honor 
 to enter upon the performance of my duties as Dean of 
 the Law School, a modest suite of rooms was assigned to 
 us in the main building. A year later, the School was 
 raised to the dignity of a college and, the chemists for- 
 saking their laboratory, the College was installed in 
 their deserted quarters. At once the law students de- 
 veloped an esprit de corps, taking their part in the life 
 of the University — literary, social and athletic. Today 
 the College leaves its "outgrown shell, by life's unresting 
 sea" — installing itself in another deserted building, the 
 Library, on its way upward and onward, to a building 
 of its own. 
 
 If the atmosphere of chemistry, with its retorts — the 
 law men, I opine, supplying the "torts" — has counted for 
 anything in the lives of the young men and women 
 privileged to begin and to complete their legal studies in 
 the University of Illinois, what shall we expect of the 
 newer atmosphere, redolent of literature, and "bookish" 
 to a degree, of which from now on, they are the legiti- 
 mate and duly constituted heirs ? The affect may be pre- 
 dicted. 
 
 Once upon a time, we are told, — it happens every day 
 — a young and progressive family left its outgrown quar- 
 ters, exchanging the modest "home" for an imposing 
 "residence." The new carpets required new furnishings, 
 the new furnishings, a new wardrobe for Madame, and 
 more elegant manners on the part of the Lord and Mas- 
 ter. Unconsciously, they were fitting themselves into 
 the newer atmosphere. They were taking their place in 
 society. Today the Law School assumes its place in the 
 University, and will necessarily yield to the subtle but 
 all-prevading atmosphere of the immediate present, and 
 of the ever-growing future. 
 
 •{ 52 }• 
 
This being so, and indeed inevitable, Mrs. Scott and I 
 have thought that we might perhaps be permitted to 
 contribute our mite to the "furnishings" of the newer 
 residence, to which I myself was a frequent visitor in the 
 days when she was a student of the Library School, then 
 installed in this very building. 
 
 But before speaking of this, let me say something of 
 law, as I conceive it to be, and its relation to what are 
 sometimes called the "polite arts." As it is often easier 
 to say what a thing is not, than what it is, I shall begin 
 in that way. 
 
 Law is not a trade ; it is not a craft ; it is a profession ; 
 it is an art. It should therefore be conceived of as a 
 profession and as an art. It should be included among 
 the arts, and a knowledge of it and of the space which 
 it occupies in the world's progress should form a part of 
 the intellectual equipment of men and women of taste 
 and refinement. Such a knowledge is not, I beg to as- 
 sure you, inconsistent with artistic feeling and literary 
 -expression. There was a day when the common law of 
 England — of which the English-speaking world is so 
 justly proud — was regarded as a gnarled and wayward 
 branch of the law, from which, at best, but crabbed fruit 
 might be expected. If I may change the figure — it spoke 
 the language of the gentleman, it is said, for the first 
 time, through Blackstone, whose elaborate and dignified 
 style has preserved his Commentaries on the Laws of 
 England from those who would divorce fact and ac- 
 curacy from literature and its formal expression. But 
 the majestic phrase of Blackstone has delivered him of 
 the enemy, and his Commentaries in addition to educat- 
 ing his fellow-countrymen in the then distant colonies 
 of the Western World, are still performing that function 
 in these United States of America, where they are re- 
 garded as not only an introduction to the study of law, 
 but as the masterpiece of its literary and legal expo- 
 sition. 
 
 i 53 y 
 
When, but a few years ago, the Bench and Bar of Eng- 
 land invited the Bench and Bar of the United States to 
 be their guests in the home country, receiving them with 
 pomp and splendor in the halls of Westminster, where 
 the law courts had for centuries, and before which the 
 rich and the poor, the oppressor and the oppressed, in- 
 deed, even King and noble offender had stood before the 
 judges of England, the American Bar Association, de- 
 siring to leave an appropriate memorial of their passing, 
 could only think of Blackstone ; and there will stand in 
 the halls of Westminster for all time, as we hope, a 
 magnificent marble, perpetuating the features of the 
 Commentator, as he himself has given to the laws of 
 England an imperishable monument. 
 
 As example is better than precept, Blackstone, through 
 his Commentaries, has given us Kent, whose Commen- 
 taries on American Law are not unworthy of their model. 
 They do not have the magnificence — perhaps we might 
 say the grandiloquence of the Englishman writing his 
 lectures at the University of Oxford, for which he made 
 careful and elaborate preparation. He was annoyed, as 
 he says, by disturbances o'nights, in the lodgings above 
 him in the inn of his court, then occupied by one Oliver 
 Goldsmith — his "reveling neighbor" as he called him. 
 However, the Commentaries of James Kent are not 
 without their purple patches — not, perhaps so deeply 
 colored, and upon such an elaborate pattern, but never- 
 theless, purple patches. Let me read you two passages 
 in which Kent speaks for himself. The first is on Roman 
 Law: 
 
 It was created and gradually matured on the banks of the Tiber, 
 by the successive wisdom of Roman statesmen, magistrates, and 
 sages; and after governing the greatest people in the ancient world 
 for the space of thirteen or fourteen centuries, and undergoing ex- 
 traordinary vicissitudes after the fall of the western empire, it was 
 revived, admired, and studied in modern Europe, on account of 
 the variety and excellence of its general principles. ... So true, 
 it seems, are the words of D'Aguesseau, that "the grand destinies 
 
 -{ 54 y 
 
of Rome are not yet accomplished; she reigns throughout the world 
 by her reason, after having ceased to reign by her authority." 
 
 The second is a much admired description of Alex- 
 ander Hamilton as a lawyer: 
 
 He traced doctrines to their source, or probed them to their 
 foundations, and at the same time paid the highest deference and 
 respect to sound authority. The reported cases do no kind of jus- 
 tice to his close and accurate logic; to his powerful and comprehen- 
 sive intellect, to the extent of his knowledge, or the eloquence of 
 his illustrations. We may truly apply to the efforts of his mind the 
 remark of Mr. Justice Buller, in reference to the judicial opinions 
 of another kindred genius [Lord Mansfield], that "principles were 
 stated, reasoned upon, enlarged, and explained, until those who 
 heard him were lost in admiration at the strength and stretch of the 
 human understanding." 
 
 Of Blackstone and Kent as Commentators, Mr. Jus- 
 tice Stephen, a learned lawyer, distinguished judge, and 
 accomplished author, has expressed the opinion that, "If 
 we accept the Commentaries of Chancellor Kent, which 
 were suggested by Blackstone, I should not doubt 
 whether any work intended to describe the whole of the 
 law of any country possessed anything like the same 
 
 merits." 
 
 Blackstone's career at the Bar, which caused him to 
 be raised to the Bench, and his experience as a Judge, 
 are but incidents which long since would have passed 
 from the minds of men, were it not for the connection 
 between his law and world literature. And James Kent's 
 services as a Chief Justice and Chancellor of New York — 
 great as they were — would be as nothing, to the standing 
 which he has because of his Commentaries, and the con- 
 nection of his law with the world's literature. 
 
 We live in an age when the iconoclast wanders "whith- 
 ersoever he listeth," depriving many a pedestal of its 
 statue. But recently, the "real" Washington was pre- 
 sented in biographical form, and the human frailties to 
 which even he was alleged to have fallen heir, recounted. 
 When the present President of the United States was 
 
 4 55 y 
 
asked his opinion of his illustrious predecessor, it is re- 
 ported that, looking from the White House window to- 
 wards the Potomac, he smiled and remarked, "His 
 monument is still standing.'' 
 
 The dry-as-dusts of legal lore have laid unholy hands 
 upon Blackstone and, in a lesser degree, upon Kent; 
 but the monument of each still stands. If you have any 
 doubt why this is so, let me commend to you a reading 
 of the Commentaries of one and the other — not for the 
 law of either country, but as literature of both ; and you 
 will be encouraged, perhaps, to cultivate a literary style 
 before the court, or in the study, should you endeavor 
 to give adequate and acceptable expression to your 
 views upon a legal topic. 
 
 I am sure that Frederic William Maitland, the out- 
 standing lawyer of our generation who wrote of law, and 
 who made literature while cultivating law, would, if he 
 were alive, agree with these views ; and I am sure, also, 
 that Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, of the United States, 
 and of the World, would say a word for Blackstone and 
 for Kent — two authors through whose Commentaries 
 he got his knowledge of the law and mayhap his feeling 
 for style. 
 
 I have said that law is neither a trade nor a craft. Per- 
 haps it would be better to say that it should be neither. 
 It is one or the other, or both, according to those who 
 practice it. It is a trade to those who look upon it merely 
 as a livelihood. It is a craft at the same time to the 
 worldly practitioner, and it may be a craft in another 
 and baser sense of the word. It will be as the lawyer 
 cares to make it. The character of the man will ennoble 
 and, in rarer cases, glorify, any calling ; the character of 
 the man may find a way of debasing the purest metal. It 
 should be a profession to those trained in reputable law 
 schools, and I would like to think that the question is 
 
 -{ 56 y 
 
decided for most, if not for all of the students, before 
 their graduation, by association with the young men and 
 the young women whom they meet day by day in the 
 classrooms, and with their instructors in and out of 
 the classrooms, who should in their bearing, in their 
 point of approach, and in their ways of life comport 
 themselves as members of a learned profession, and in- 
 sensibly form the ambition of the students coming into 
 their presence, to show, themselves, whether in their of- 
 fices or in courts of justice, that the gentleman is com- 
 patible with the lawyer, and that the lawyer is out of 
 place in the profession if he does not manifest himself 
 in thought, in word, and in deed, to be a gentle-man in 
 the sense in which we speak of women as gentlewomen. 
 
 Without underrating the knowledge of law which stu- 
 dents of a law school are expected to acquire, I cannot 
 rid myself of the belief, which is to me as an obsession, 
 that many a student, and a good student at that, will get 
 more from his professors than he does from his courses ; 
 and that from the atmosphere of the school and its im- 
 mediate surroundings, and of the University, of which 
 it is a part, he will carry the mark, evidenced in his per- 
 son and in his demeanor, of one who has lived among 
 the things which make for refinement. A law school 
 disconnected from a university is better than a law of- 
 fice; a law school connected with a university has the 
 standards and the ideals of a university, and the years, 
 however full they are of law, are fuller still of the broad- 
 ening influences of the university — indefinable, inde- 
 scribable, and yet apparent to the casual observer. 
 
 It is interesting to hear graduates who have passed 
 well along the highway of life, and who relate their ex- 
 periences, talk of their early days. So far as I can recall, 
 they do not speak of their courses, but of the men who 
 professed those courses; rarely of their ability as pro- 
 fessors or lecturers, but much of their ways and of their 
 manners, which seem to have made the deepest impres- 
 
 1 57 }- 
 
sion because it is the abiding effect. Those who have 
 helped the iriost are often those who have taught the 
 least, but who have, somehow, entered into the lives of 
 their students, and who, in losing themselves, have 
 gained immortality in the lives of others. 
 
 But doubtless you suspect these things already. You 
 have, as I, heard others discourse of their earlier days, 
 and others will hear you, and wonder how it is that char- 
 acter so far surpasses mere learning as to be remem- 
 bered when the lesson of the day has passed with the 
 day. 
 
 The best school, they say, is the school of experience ; 
 and the best law school is made up of those, either at the 
 Bar or on the Bench, who have glorified the profession. 
 Not the least advantage of belonging to a profession is 
 that you come into contact with all of those who have 
 preceded you, just as some of you may come into con- 
 tact with those who are to follow. You are brothers-in- 
 law, as it were, of the multitudes who have gone before 
 you. You are bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh. 
 They have made your traditions, and you are making 
 the traditions of those who are to follow. This is an 
 ennobling conception of your profession and, in itself, an 
 incentive not to stumble and fall. 
 
 Most of the multitude are nameless, but of the many 
 called, some few are chosen, and you may, when you 
 will, commune with these chosen few. The triumphs of 
 the lawyers who are merely successful, are evanescent. 
 Those who have had the good fortune to represent prin- 
 ciples and to cause them to prevail unite their names 
 with the principles which they saved. 
 
 During the trying days of the French Revolution the 
 advocates of political liberty had a hard time of it in 
 England, a still harder time in Scotland and, as you can 
 well imagine, the hardest in Ireland. Habeas corpus was 
 suspended, and the prisons were full of worthy people 
 whose only crime was the advocacy of political and per- 
 
 4 58 }- 
 
sonal liberty — feelings awakened in them by the French 
 Revolution, whose excesses, however, had made the lot 
 of their sympathizers in the British Isles uncomfortable, 
 when not personally endangered. In the last two decades 
 of the Eighteenth Century the Government of England 
 appears to have honestly believed that it should make an 
 example of political prisoners, in order to prevent the 
 spread of what the governing class of the day was pleased 
 to term the "revolutionary and subversive ideals of 
 France." These prisoners, martyrs to the cause of lib- 
 erty, found a defender in Thomas Erskine, of whom 
 Lord John Russell finely and truly said that he had "the 
 tongue of Cicero, and the soul of Hampden." His ad- 
 dresses to the juries, in these most hazardous of cases 
 produced acquittal, and they are today, as they were 
 when delivered, models of forensic eloquence. He was 
 later Lord Chancellor, but his reputation is not of the 
 wool sack, but of the courts of justice in which he made 
 freedom of opinion the patrimony of the humblest. He 
 was a youngster who had gone from Edinburg to Lon- 
 don to seek fame and fortune, and to find immortality. 
 His brother Henry, older and already distinguishing 
 himself at the Bar, remained in Edinburg, and in that 
 capital of Scotland, then termed, and perhaps not un- 
 justly, the modern Athens, he likewise defended the vic- 
 tims of political oppression. The addresses which he 
 pronounced on these occasions have not come down to 
 us, but he is said by the most competent of authorities to 
 have been even a better speaker than his brother 
 Thomas. Lord Brougham, himself an orator of no mean 
 ability, has said to him : "If I were to name the most con- 
 summate exhibition of forensic talent that I ever wit- 
 nessed, whether in the skilful conduct of the argument, 
 the felicity of the copious illustration, the cogency of the 
 reasoning, or the dexterous appeal to the prejudices of 
 the court, I should without hesitation at once point to 
 his address (hearing in presence) on Maitland's case; 
 
 i 59 }- 
 
and were my friend Lauderdale alive, to him I should 
 appeal, for he heard it with me, and came away declar- 
 ing that his brother Thomas (Lord Erskine) never sur- 
 passed — nay, he thought never equalled it." And Lord 
 Jeffery, whose judgments were not overtempered with 
 mercy, records that, "In his profession, indeed, all his 
 wit was argument, and each of his delightful illustra- 
 tions a material step in his reasoning." Like his younger 
 brother, he was a liberal, and like him, for a time he 
 held office in a liberal government ; yet his fame is that 
 of his brother, and is equally secure : a defender of the 
 defenceless, and a protector of political liberty. His 
 monument was in every honest heart, and today in 
 Edinburg, on the house in which he was born, a stranger 
 passing that way will read the inscription that, "No poor 
 man wanted bread while Harry Erskine lived." 
 
 Of Ireland, I have said that the situation was even 
 worse. There, too, where adulation was the highway to 
 preferment, and silence the only safety, the defenceless 
 found an Erskine in John Philpot Curran, who, for- 
 gotten as a Master of the Rolls, is deathless at the Bar. 
 On one occasion when he was defending a political pris- 
 oner, the soldiers, with whom the courtroom was packed, 
 threatened personal violence. Curran, turning to them 
 cried, "You may assassinate me, but you cannot intimi- 
 date me!" Of him, too, there is a tribute, as in the case 
 of the Erskines ; more agreeable to him, and assuredly 
 more encouraging to us than monuments of marble or 
 of brass. "There never was so honest an Irishman," 
 was Daniel O'ConnelPs opinion of Curran. 
 
 Modern England is not only free, but it is perhaps the 
 most democratic of countries. Scotland, in Gladstone's 
 time, was the support of that great Liberal, who used to 
 speak of "us Scotch members" on the floor of the House 
 of Commons. And today there is a Free State of Ire- 
 land, with its minister plenipotentiary at Washington. 
 
 I would not say of these great men, for fear of making 
 
 -{ 60 y 
 
them blush if they should hear my voice, that it "pays" 
 to have principles ; but they are witnesses that principles 
 are good things in themselves, and good for those who 
 have them. To the credit of our profession they were 
 lawyers with whom law was neither a trade nor a craft, 
 but a profession and an art. 
 
 Of the nameless throngs who have passed through 
 courts of justice, we still retain memories of some who 
 tarried for a moment on the Bench. Their monuments 
 are the judgments which they delivered in law suits tried 
 before them ; they are preserved in the law reports, and 
 their leading cases are the texts through which we of 
 America are learning our law, by means of the case 
 method, which, for the moment at least, has replaced 
 every other. While it cannot, perhaps, be said of all of 
 the judges that they were the most eminent lawyers of 
 their time, they were, nevertheless, leaders at the Bar, 
 and were so considered by their professional brethern. 
 We may, if we but will, enter into relations with them, 
 and spend an hour or two in their company, or, indeed, 
 a whole evening, if we so desire. We have only to take 
 from the shelves Foss' Lives of the Judges, a series of 
 nine moderate volumes carrying the lives of the Judges 
 of England from the earliest days until 1864, the date 
 of the ninth volume. And if nine volumes seem appal- 
 ling, you can, in a single volume, possess yourself of 
 Foss' Biographia Juridica containing shorter biogra- 
 phies of the judges, arranged in alphabetical, instead of 
 the chronological order of the longer series. Here, you 
 will have authentic information of the sages of the law 
 who honored the Bench ; of Lord Chief Justice Sir Ed- 
 ward Coke, whose name will forever remain connected 
 with the Petition of Rights ; of Lord High Chancellor Sir 
 Francis Bacon, who stumbled and fell from the wool 
 sack ; of Sir Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Justice, and the 
 
 i 6i y 
 
embodiment of personal integrity and the model of 
 judges ; of Sir John Holt, who, after a wayward youth 
 became a Lord Chief Justice "without fear and without 
 reproach." Tradition has it that while visiting in jail a 
 former friend of University days, whom he had tried for 
 felony, Holt inquired of their other companions. "Ah, 
 my Lord," replied the culprit, "they are all hanged but 
 myself and your Lordship." Then, too, Sir Heneage 
 Finch, who as Lord Chancellor Nottingham was des- 
 tined to be the founder of modern equity; of Lord 
 Hardwicke, for many years Chancellor, and one of the 
 glories of common law as well as of chancery; of Lord 
 Eldon, whose name has become almost synonymous 
 with equity ; of Sir William Grant, Master of the Rolls, 
 as expeditious as he was sound and sure, equally com- 
 petent in international law; Sir William Scott, later 
 Lord Stowell, a brother of Eldon, the greatest of ad- 
 miralty judges in England, and one of the greatest ex- 
 pounders of international law from the Bench. And 
 among the many common law judges, whom I have 
 overlooked, to mention those who distinguished them- 
 selves at the Chancery Bar and the Bench, I would add 
 Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, whose name is the most 
 famous in the annals of English magistrates, in so far as 
 the judge may be considered a magistrate; Lord Chief 
 Justices Kenyon, Ellenborough and Tindal, to end with 
 Baron Parke, of the Court of Exchequer, later raised to 
 the peerage as Lord Wensleydale, and considered by the 
 profession to have been the most competent of common 
 law lawyers. 
 
 These you may have as your friends, if you will but 
 put up with their company, through the accurate pages of 
 Foss, and, in so far as they were Lord Chief Justices and 
 Lord Chancellors, through the more entertaining, if less 
 accurate, and more vivacious but at times malicious 
 pages of Lord Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors 
 and of the Chief Justices of England. He was himself 
 
 i 62 y 
 
both Chief Justice and Chancellor, of whose literary 
 performances, it was said, perhaps with hardly less 
 malice than Campbell had written of some of his emi- 
 nent predecessors, that he had by his biographies added 
 " a new terror to death." 
 
 Speaking in a law school in which common law and 
 equity are the bases of study, I have confined myself to 
 a few of the lawyers and judges of England whose names 
 are inextricably connected with those systems of law 
 forming the bases of our own. However, I would not 
 have you believe that we of the United States have not 
 lawyers and judges worthy of the Bar and Bench of the 
 mother country. With their great names you are, of 
 course, more familiar. Therefore, without indulging in 
 an enumeration, I would refer you to the eight stately 
 volumes of Great American Lawyers in which you will 
 find the careers of our judges as well. 
 
 When, for the first time, you read one of their opin- 
 ions — whether in common law or in equity — in any of 
 the case books with which our schools abound, you may, 
 by consulting Foss, Campbell, or the Great American 
 Lawyers, easily ascertain what manner of man he was 
 who rendered the decision, his standing as a judge, the 
 ways and means by which he acquired his education, 
 progressed, and attained his distinction at the Bar, and 
 his services upon the Bench. By so doing, you will be 
 able to appreciate the value of the judgment; and one 
 bearing an honored name will cause you to ponder and 
 to dwell upon it as you would not an opinion of a judge 
 of lesser standing. If you do not see their ideas in the 
 process of formation, you at least see the manner in 
 which they are expressed — in models of reasoning and 
 of style, worthy of imitation, because they embody 
 learning of the law and the wisdom of the profession. 
 
 These may perhaps seem to be small matters. They 
 will loom larger with time ; and in after years you will 
 look upon the judges as friends of your youth, trust in 
 
 -i 63 y 
 
whom was never misplaced, and whose ways were, if I 
 may say so, the ways of righteousness and of peace. 
 
 Among the profession there is one who seems in his 
 person and in his character, above all others to embody 
 and show forth the qualities which we would like to 
 think inherent in a member of the legal profession — a lib- 
 eral in an illiberal age; a member of Parliament who 
 sought to use his influence to reform the criminal code 
 under which his countrymen so unjustly suffered, but 
 was unable to do more than to start a movement which, 
 however, has made of the criminal law of England the 
 most efficient and, at the same time, the most humane 
 of codes. His highest post was that of Solicitor-General, 
 although he would have adorned the Bench and occu- 
 pied the wool sack if he had lived a few years longer, 
 until the advent of his party to power. The tragic and 
 untimely death of Sir Samuel Romilly — for it is of him, 
 I am speaking — was recognized as a public calamity, 
 and moved even Lord Eldon, the embodiment of Tory- 
 ism, to tears. I have quoted a word of praise of the 
 Erskines, and of Curran, from their fellow-countrymen. 
 Let me lay before you, in English, what Benjamin Con- 
 stant of France said of Romilly upon hearing, in Paris, 
 of his death at the age of sixty-one : "An illustrious for- 
 eigner who belonged to all countries, because he has 
 merited the admiration of all countries in defending the 
 cause of humanity, of liberty, and of justice." 
 
 With Romilly as a model, law will be neither a trade 
 nor a craft; and in being a profession, it will not cease 
 to be an art. We all need a hero, for in the busy strug- 
 gles of life, and in the desire to succeed, we are some- 
 times inclined to adopt the ways of trade — the methods 
 of business — instead of the standards of art, and of a 
 
 profession. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 My dear young friends, I had the very great honor to 
 be connected with this Law School from its beginning, 
 
 A 64 }- 
 
indeed, I was its first dean; and, had the privilege of 
 addressing your predecessors on their migration from 
 the older building, which was assigned to the Law 
 School and dedicated under my deanship. I am, not 
 unnaturally, anxious that your removal to more ade- 
 quate quarters should be celebrated in a more elaborate 
 way, becoming a profession and an art. And inasmuch 
 as Mrs. Scott was a student at the University at that 
 time — as I have already mentioned — we have both 
 thought that we would like, in memory of a precious as- 
 sociation, to leave with you something which, seen daily, 
 may enter into your daily life. It seems to us, upon re- 
 flection, that the best way to convince you that law is an 
 art and a profession would be to confront you with evi- 
 dences of that art and of that profession. Therefore, we 
 ask the Dean of the College of Law to accept, in our 
 behalf and in our joint names, a collection of portraits, 
 mezzotints, stiples and line engravings, of some of the 
 greatest judges of the profession, so that, strolling 
 through the building in your leisure hours, you will feel 
 yourselves in an atmosphere, not only of your own age, 
 but of the centuries ; and that as no one can be oblivious 
 to his environment, and no person can fail, uncon- 
 sciously and without effort, to be impressed by the at- 
 mosphere with which he is surrounded, you will leave 
 the Law School of the University of Illinois in the 
 fullness of knowledge, for the practice of your profession 
 and of your art, with the assurance and the conscious- 
 ness that, if you do not advance their traditions, they 
 will neither be tarnished, nor suffer in your hands. 
 
 Therefore, we offer you twenty-eight prints — a beau- 
 tiful one, as we would like you to think, for every year 
 from the date of my connection with the Law School, 
 and one from each of us for you — as they say — to "grow 
 on." And we hope that, with your prayers, our lives may 
 be so prolonged that we may give to your successors 
 here, a second series of twenty-eight prints — the one for 
 
 -f 65 }- 
 
the years that have been, and the other for the years that 
 are to come. 
 
 Long before I was connected with the University of 
 Illinois, I read some verses of Austin Dobson, with 
 which, perhaps, you may not be familiar, but which I 
 always recall with pleasure. In parting, I would call 
 them to your attention, that you, who are living in the 
 present, and busied with the traditions of the past, may 
 think somewhat of the future ; and I would like to be- 
 lieve that they may make an appeal, especially to those 
 of you who are about to enter upon the practice of a 
 learned profession and of an ennobling art. 
 
 In after days, when grasses high 
 O'er-top the stone where I shall lie, 
 Though ill or well the world adjust 
 My slender claim to honored dust, 
 I shall not question nor reply. 
 I shall not see the morning sky, 
 I shall not hear the night-wind sigh, 
 I shall be mute, as all men must 
 In after days! 
 But yet, now living, fain were I 
 That some one then should testify, 
 Saying — He held his pen in trust 
 To Art, not serving shame or lust. 
 Will none? . . . Then let my memory die 
 In after days! 
 
 ■{ 66 } 
 
President Kinley : It is a gracious and fine thing 
 that you, Dr. and Mrs. Scott, have done in pre- 
 senting the University for its College of Law with 
 this large number of fine pictures of men distinguished 
 in the history of the law of the English speaking peoples. 
 Your splendid gift awakens recollections of your long 
 service to the University years ago when you were offi- 
 cially connected with it. It brings to the minds and 
 hearts of those of us who were here at that time as your 
 associates recollections of your splendid loyalty and in- 
 spiring service. Your present action is but in keeping 
 with all that has preceded. 
 
 These pictures will hang on the walls of the College of 
 Law through generations of students yet to come. They 
 will be an inspiration as well as a reminder. In their 
 study of what is sometimes called the "dry" subject of 
 law, students will find their path made easier and their 
 horizon made brighter by looking occasionally at these 
 pictures. They will speculate upon the personality, the 
 character, the peculiarities of each individual and recall 
 his contribution to the great science and art they are 
 studying. Their studies will mean more to them, as they 
 think of these men and their achievements. As a re- 
 minder, these pictures will call to the recollection of stu- 
 dents the spirit of their donors. They will remember 
 that that spirit is one of service, kindliness, loyalty and 
 inspiration, which they will do well to emulate. 
 
 Through the generations these pictures will remind 
 our students of the great traditions and glorious history 
 of their field of study, of the many distinguished men 
 who have contributed to its development, and will in- 
 spire them to add their contribution to the progress of 
 the science of law. 
 
 For the College of Law, its students, its faculty, and 
 for the University, the faculty, and the Board of Trus- 
 tees, I thank you very warmly for your splendid gift. 
 
 -{ 67 }- 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 3 0112 110339634 
 
 /