77/e Green Bag. have sufficient general learning and must have studied law regularly and attentively for three years. The court has established a standing committee to conduct the exam inations and has framed rules. We have en countered some difficulties in enforcing the excellent rules adopted by the court. Per haps our experience may be of value to gen tlemen from other States and their experi ence is likely to be useful to us. The real purpose of examinations for the bar is to secure proper preparation on the part of those who propose to practise law, and they are useful to the extent that they accomplish that end. They operate by a process of exclusion. It is not necessary to hold examinations for the purpose of ad mitting members to the bar. They are held for the purpose of excluding applicants, and the question always is, who shall be refused permission to commence the practice of law. .1 propose to deal with the subject from that point of view and to invite your attention to the classes of persons who in the public in terest and for the greatest good of the great est number, including themselves, ought not to be permitted to hold themselves out to the public as attorneys and counsellors at law. A general education is the first and most obvious requirement. The law is a science which cannot be studied by those who have not laid the foundation by a course of mental discipline and practice in study, and who have not acquired a certain fund of know ledge of common things. What is known in the United States as a high school course is generally recognized as the least amount of preliminary training and practice in study that will enable a young man to take up successfully a subject so intricate and com plicated and calling for such powers of analysis and generalization as the law. This means that the law student shall attend school until he is eighteen or nineteen years of age, studying the English language, its grammar and literature, with exercises in
composition, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, geography, the outlines of ancient and mo dern history, with special reference to Eng lish and American history, physics, and a course of two years in a classical or foreign language. These are the minimum require ments for admission to law schools of recog nized standing and are the specific require ments for admission to the bar imposed by statute or rule of court in many States, in cluding Ohio, New York, New Hampshire, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Ver mont. In 1898 Mr. Goodell and Judge Danaher, members of the New York State board of law examiners and Mr. J. S. H. Frink of the New Hampshire board, gave to this as sociation their opinion of the great value of a standard of general education as a condi tion of commencing the study of the law. Judge Danaher said that according to his observation, the requirements in New York had been productive of wonderful results in elevating the tone and general standard of the profession, and that from his experience he would rather abolish examinations in law than dispense with a high preliminary condi tion of general education. In New Jersey the value attached to general education is indicated by a provision which requires a candidate for admission to the bar to have studied law four years if he has not been admitted to the degree of bachelor of arts or bachelor of science. Three years' study is required from candidates holding those de grees. In Rhode Island a candidate who has received a classical education is re quired to study law only two years while other candidates are required to give three years to the studv of law. On the continent of Europe the only avenue to the bar is through the universities. In England candidates for admission as attorneys or solicitors, as well as candidates for the bar, who are not university men, must submit to a preliminary examination about
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