Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 10.djvu/465

Harvard Law Review. Published monthly, during the Academic Year, by Harvard Law Students. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE, $2.50 PER ANNUM 35 CENTS PER NUMBER. Editorial Board. Robert G. Dodge, Editor-in-Chief. James A. Pirce, Treamrer, Franklin M. Archer, Edward Sandford, Roland Gray, Harry U. Sims, Livingston Ham, Clarence B. Smith, Logan Hay, Lloyd W. Smith, Harold D. Hazeltine, . J. Lewis Stackpole, Jr., Robert Homans, Charles S. Thurston. Robert L. Raymond, Jens L Westengard, Compulsory Law-School Attendance. — The position taken by the New York authorities in increasing the requirements for admission to the Bar has been most gratifying. A further improvement is now advocated by the Board of Law Examiners of that State. In a paper read before the recent meeting of the State Bar Association at Albany, Mr. Frankhn M. Danaher, speaking for the Board, strongly recommends the successful completion of at least a full two years' course of study in an approved law school as a requisite for admission. According to the Examiners, the clerk system of the present day, though by no means valueless, furnishes nevertheless an insufficient training for professional life ; and they find the solution of the problem in the suggested requirement. That com- pulsory law-school attendance would result in greatly improving the general character of the Bar, and in adding to its usefulness, there can be no doubt. Apparendy, too, there exist on valid objections to the adoption of such a plan. It is true that many able and successful law- yers have not had the advantages of a well equipped law school, but for the more exacting demands that the future promises to make upon the legal profession there must be a more thorough preparation than there has ever been in the past. Furthermore, few worthy of attaining success at the Bar would be deterred from entering the profession by this added requirement, and, as was remarked by Mr. Justice Brewer in his excellent address entitled " A Better Education the Great Need of the Profession," there are certainly many who really "ought to be deterred." The medi- cal profession has for some time required of applicants for admission an attendance at some approved school, and the profession of law should not be slow in making a similar provision, both for its own protection and for the benefit of society in general. Can a Man be Compelled to Vote? — The legislature of Missouri recently devised a novel scheme for making the exercise of the right of suffrage compulsory. A provision was inserted in the charter of Kansas City to the effect that every qualified voter who failed to vote at a regu-