Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 10.djvu/50

24 HARVARD LAW REVIEW, where students are still mechanically prepared to become lawyers. So that our local bar tends to abound in members whose specific training fits them to be philosophic lawyers. The schools which now teach law as it ought to be may hasten the day when only such law will be recognized and applied. Seven of the nine judges on the Supreme Bench of the United States are school-bred lawyers, three of the seven being from one school. It cannot be but that to some degree their early educa- tion may through- their decisions color the law of the land. In his oration, Sir Frederick Pollock expressed surprise, but pleasure, to be able to say that this Review is a contribution of some consequence to the literature of academic law. But for all that, it may not be amiss for the younger readers to find the uni- form erudition of these columns now giving way to an exhibition approximately fair and orderly, — of some of the existing circum- stances which in New York City at least, seem to set the ideal of the profession hopelessly far off and to make anything like high purpose common to the local bar seem a mere pretence. The ex- cuse for this exhibition is not merely that such existing circum- stances seldom cheer the philosophic lawyer at any stage of his career, but that, on the whole, they bear most severely upon beginners at the law. A surprisingly large fraction of the entire population of the United States dwells within a radius of twenty-five miles from our City Hall, and nearly every human being in that circle is directly or indirectly supported by rents or profits earned on Manhattan Island. Local commissions from boards of trade and legislatures in sister states have for years been vainly devising means that this or that port on our eastern coast might rival or surpass New York. But her natural advantages have not been argued away. As the chief gateway of commerce to a country vast, new, and rich, her commercial importance, her rapid growth in numbers and in wealth, great as they are, have really just begun. Belief in this prevails. Led by it, men of every calling and variety of merit or purpose sacrifice easy provincial careers and throng here from all parts of the country. No domestic business enterprise, speculative or conservative, avoids our local markets or moneyed institutions. Every form of chartered combination, no matter what state authorizes it, by which individuals seek — just now with success — to absorb the power and profit in an