Munson, C. La Rue
...George Matthews Sharp.
Boston, 1911.

YALE
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

IN MEMORIAM

The Hon, George Matthews Sharp, LLD.
A PAPER BY
C. LA RUE MUNSON
of Williamsport, Pennsylvania -
AND READ BEFORE THE
SECTION OF LEGAL EDUCATION
OF THE
AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION
Boston, August 30, 191 1

IN MEMORIAM

The Honorable George Matthews Sharp, LL. D.

BY
C. LA RUE MUNSON,
WlLLIAMSPORT, PENNSYLVANIA.
I am permitted to write of your late Chairman in a
personal way rather than to discuss in any detail the
work he so well performed for the cause of Legal Edu
cation; this for the reason that, with one exception, no
other person now living knew him so well or bore to
ward him such intimate personal relations, extending
over a period of thirty-eight years. In September, 1873,
we entered as chums at the Yale Law School and two
years later were called to the bar of our respective States,
and during all the following years saw much of one an
other and preserved a friendship which closed only with
his death a few weeks ago. As a personal tribute I may
be permitted to say that I am well persuaded to believe
that my youthful character was much fashioned and
directed by the high standards my friend ever set before
me, both by example and precept. He was always the
ideal gentleman, and of him as a student, as a lawyer
and as a judge it can well be said that he was
Sans peur et sans reproche. Such men as he are always
the leaders in the high ethical qualities which make the
great lawyer and the irreproachable jurist. It was this
well-developed sense of ethics, coupled with his belief in
the necessity for high standards for admission to our
profession, which led him to take so active a part in the
formation of this Section and in its subsequent develop
ment and success.

George Matthews Sharp came of good Quaker an
cestry. His father, the late Dr. A. P. Sharp, was of an
old Virginia family and the founder of the leading
chemical house of Sharp & Dohme, and to which his
fame as a great chemist gave prominence. His maternal
descent was from the Matthews, whose home in Harford
County, Maryland, has continued in that family for gen
erations. The late Mr. Justice Stanley Matthews was
his cousin, and with him he maintained for many years
the most cordial and intimate relations. He was born
in Baltimore on November 17th, 1851, and receiving a
primary education in private schools, completed his secu
lar education in Loyola College, subsequently entering
the service of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad for a
short time. His tastes leading him in another direction,
he entered the Yale Law School with the class of 1875,
and at a time when that now well known institution
was emerging from a. period of decadence following a
brilliant earlier history. The members of that class, as
well as their successors, could not fail to be impressed
with the self-sacrificing labors of those who did so much
to bring that School of Law to its present eminent posi
tion ; their survivor there now being the distinguished
Governor of Connecticut, whose title of Professor Bald
win spells to his former students higher honors even than
those he has had or is entitled to receive from the suf
frages of his fellow citizens. It was this willingness to
sacrifice themselves to the improvement of legal educa
tion which later inspired Judge Sharp to devote so much
of his time to the cause maintained by this Section.
Coming from the Yale Law School in the front rank
of his class, he returned to Baltimore and was called to
the bar of Maryland in the autumn of 1875, where he
soon established himself in a remunerative practice and
in the higher walks of our profession. Without being
definitely advised, I am quite sure he never accepted a
retainer on the criminal side of the Courts, while I know

from his own lips, verified by the position he has taken
at the meetings of this Association, that he never lowered
his standing at the bar by receiving a contingent fee, and
always abhorred those who would degrade our profession
to a trading commercialism. As a lawyer, my per
sonal knowledge of Mr. Sharp was confined to our
student days, enlarged by the frequent discussions we
had over our respective causes, bringing out his profound
knowledge of the great legal principles and his familiar
ity with the adjudications of the Courts, although in
1889 I had occasion to employ him to act as general
counsel in Maryland for a clientage involving important
matters and in a field of the law barren of authority, re
quiring great legal ability as well as a high order of
diplomacy, with the result that he merited the commen
dation of his clients and commanded their entire confi
dence. He was the incarnation of physical and mental vigor,
and exhaustively mastering every detail of his causes,
carried them to victory, and often those in which a less
diligent advocate would not have succeeded. As a
counsellor he was gifted with the art of leading his
clients to a course of action assuring success or avoiding
dangers without displaying a manner which so often
repels, or leads to the belief that the lawyer is more
controlled by the technicalities of the law than governed
by practical common sense.
While never a politician, in the professional accept
ance of the term, he was nevertheless a firm believer in
the principles of the Republican party, by whom, as
also by his brethren of the bar, he was regarded as so
well fitted for judicial office as to give him the nomina
tion for the Supreme Court of Baltimore in 1888, and
for Attorney General of Maryland in 1891. While he
failed of both these elections, owing to the normally
great majorities of the opposition party, he received
many more votes than his colleagues on his tickets, and

in 1897 was elected by a handsome majority to the bench
for which he had first been nominated. His term would
have expired in 1913, but he would have been assured of
a return, and without serious opposition, owing to the
record he had made as a learned, honorable and upright
judge. He was rarely reversed in the Court of Appeals,
and his opinions are models of clearness and legal learn
ing. The only criticism I could raise against his judicial
career would be that he might have been inclined to
lean backward, a somewhat negative fault and one which
would not be urged against the bench in some sections
of other States. He often said to me that his chief regret
that he was not at the bar lay in the fact that he was of
necessity separated from the closer friendship of his
professional brethren. So it was that, as my clientage
was chiefly in another State, and did not extend into
the jurisdiction of his Court, we were able to preserve a
friendship commencing in our young manhood years and
extending to the day of his death; an intimacy I could
not have maintained had my causes been likely to have
come before him, but giving me the opportunity to know
him with a familiarity few, if any, others enjoyed, where
by I possessed his entire confidence and had a peculiar
knowledge of his high character and eminent qualities
of heart and brain. I would sum up George Matthews
Sharp by saying that no man more noble, more ethical,
more the gentleman in the best sense, more fair in judg
ment, less swayed by passion or prejudice, less inclined
to degrade the high position of the lawyer, and less
improperly approachable as a judge ever entered the
ranks of our profession or wore the judicial ermine.
Of his literary work, his lectures at the Yale Law
School during some thirteen years, and his labors in the
cause of legal education stand out most prominently.
Of the former I had occasion to judge as one of his
listeners, as his course often synchronized with my own,
and I bear testimony, as would the many students who

sat under him, to the clearness of his statements, the
profundity of his knowledge of his subjects and the
determination to master their principles with which he
inspired his classes. The reports of this Association
bear record of his labors in the Section of Legal Educa
tion. Another has treated the subject more satisfactorily,
but a short review of Judge Sharp's work in this direc
tion may be acceptable. Being a man of high ideals, he
naturally sought to do all in his power to elevate the
standards of our profession. He believed a lawyer should
be first a gentleman; that he should have at least fair
literary attainments, combining therewith some business
education, and a mastery of the principles of the law,
with sufficient practical ability to apply them to the facts
arising in his causes, or in the duties of the office prac
titioner. He attributed the rather alarming number of
undesirable and unfit young men then seeking and often
gaining admission to the bar to a want of a literary and
technical legal education, owing largely to the laxity of
Law School methods, and the money-making motive
back of many of the schools. He looked beyond the
earning possibilities of the profession to the maintenance
of the ancient and honorable prestige of the bar, and its
almost unlimited influence upon both public and private
affairs. With this broad view of the subject he held
that superficial and local remedies would not accomplish
the desired results, and so determined to use his influence
and direct his energies toward advocating and bringing
about certain radical reforms, which he and his asso
ciates in this work believed would effect a permanent
cure for many of the ills from which the profession was
suffering. This Association seemed to offer the best facilities and
promised the greatest assistance in undertaking this rather
uncertain but surely laborious task. For several years
prior to the formation of this Section the Committee on
Legal Education, of which Judge Sharp was one of its

most active members, undertook to gather the fullest
possible information as to the then condition of legal
education in the United States, and other countries. As
the result of this wide extended investigation several
exhaustive and most interesting reports were submitted
to the Association, accompanied by elaborated tables of
statistics made up from the catalogues of all the Law
Schools in our country, and in these labors Judge Sharp
had large share, and to them devoted much time and
attention. From the reports and statistics it clearly ap
peared that education in Law Schools had largely super
seded the old method of office training, and that from then
on they would be largely responsible for the character and
efficiency of the bar, but it was also apparent that a
lamentable condition existed in the lack of proper and
uniform requirements for entrance into the schools, cur
riculum, length of course, etc., these institutions varying
all the way from the most unsatisfactory one-year school
with night courses, through a better class with two years
requirements, to satisfactory school requiring three and
four years attendance. To cope with a situation at once
so grave, important and far-reaching necessitated
thought, energy and action, resulting in the erection of
this Section, and in which Judge Sharp served faithfully
for about ten years as its Secretary, during all of that
time enthusiastically giving of his time, ability and
energy. He lived to see fulfilled many of the reforms for
which he had so diligently and energetically labored, in
cluding the adoption very generally of State Boards of
Law Examiners, in place of the much abused custom of
local admissions, theretofore prevailing. It was fitting
that he should have ended his career in this cause after
being chosen your Chairman ; an honor he highly ap
preciated, and a duty he would have acceptably per
formed. Writing more personally of my friend, I must restrain

my pen against straying into subjects which one should
preserve among tender and delightful memories, rather
than to publish even among those who knew him well
and highly regarded him ; or of the humorous side of
his character, for which Judge Sharp was noted among
his friends ; but I cannot refrain from adding that when
it was suggested that Legal Education was apparently
his only sweetheart, his answer, in jocular repartee, was
that one was certain, the other doubtful, if not fickle,
and that with the former he was assured of success,
while he was not persuaded of victory with the latter,
even if one could have been found for him.
His was a life of sacrifice for others, so far as domestic
happiness was concerned. His devotion to his sainted
mother kept him by her side, continued after her death
to his aged father, thus leading him away from the
establishment of his own hearthstone. Two years ago
he was left alone in a lonely house with only distant
relatives and a few intimate friends, of whom some, by
reason of their distance, saw him but infrequently; but
he preserved his cheerfulness, and while often regretting
that he had not been blessed with a family of his own,
bore his lot in life without complaint. He traveled much
and his vacations both at home and abroad were spent
among people of social prominence, giving him an envi
able acquaintance on both sides of the Atlantic. He was
a voracious reader, and was well informed on every sub
ject and well abreast of the times. His literary style
was of the best, and had he chosen that side of our
profession, his text-books would have been renowned.
After an illness of but a few weeks he fell asleep on July
7th last, in full possession of his mental activities, assured
of his spiritual welfare, and facing death firmly and with
a brave heart. His memory is enshrined in the hearts
of those who valued his friendship; he possessed the
full regard of his judicial associates, and the high respect
of the bar, while in this Association, and particularly in
this Section, his work remains an enduring monument.

Syracuse, N. Y.
Stock Ion, Calif.