HASTINGS COLLEGE OF THE LAW.
(Law Department of the University of California)
By Charles W. Slack
It is not possible to say much of an institution of learning which has had an existence of scarcely more than a decade. The time is so brief that any beneficial results which it may have achieved are but beginning to be noticeable. The most that can be done is to state whence it came and what it is attempting to accomplish.
In March, 1877, an article appeared in one of the college papers at Berkeley, announcing, upon authority, the intention of Hon. S. Clinton Hastings, a well-known millionaire and ex-Chief-Justice of the State, to found a law school, which should become a part of the University of California. Although the organic act of the University pro vided that there should be maintained in the University a college of the law, yet the increasing demands for the support of the more necessary academic departments of the young institution had compelled the Regents to abandon any notion which they might have entertained of establishing a law department. A medical school of the University had already been founded through the munificence of a distinguished physician and surgeon of San Francisco, and was in successful operation. A law school was much needed, in which the California youth, intending to enter the legal profession, might obtain a systematic knowledge of the law. The schools of Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Ann Arbor, and other Eastern institutions were open to but a favored few, and besides no instructions could be expected to be given by them in the important local laws of the State. It was for these reasons that Judge Hastings's proposition was enthusiastically received by the Regents of the University, students, and many prominent judges and lawyers.
At the next session of the Legislature an Act drafted by Judge Hastings was passed, creating the "Hastings College of the Law," and providing for its affiliation with the University. The Act was approved by Governor Irwin March 26, 1878, and went into immediate operation. By its terms Judge Hastings was to pay into the State Treasury
