Evarts, Cortlandt Parker, Rufus King, and other celebrated lawyers, on the Special Committee for the Relief of the Supreme Court of the United States, and prepared the majority report which was adopted by the association after a learned and exhaustive debate, and has been the basis of all their subsequent action looking to the relief of the Supreme Court.
In 1887 Mr. Hitchcock, on invitation, read a paper before the New York State Bar Association on "American State Constitutions," in recognition of which he was elected an honorary member by that association; and in the same year, as orator of the American Bar Association, he delivered an address on "General Corporation Laws."
Professor Bryce, in his remarkable work, "The American Commonwealth," has given extracts f»om both of these papers.
In March of this year Mr. Hitchcock delivered at the University of Michigan an address on "Constitutional Development in the United States as influenced by Chief-Justice Marshall," following Judge Cooley in a series of five lectures by distinguished jurists on the Constitutional History of the United States.
He was the organizer of the Civil Service Reform Association of Missouri, was for several years its president, and has been one of the leaders of national note in that movement.
As professor, dean, and provost of the Law School, Mr. Hitchcock brought to bear the ability, learning, and earnestness of purpose characteristic of all his work. His favorite topics are Constitutional Law, Equity, and Corporation Law; but he has at different times taught Mercantile Law, Evidence, Real Property, Corporation Law, and Equity, and he still lectures each year on the Law of Wills and Successions.
He is, in all things, scholarly, thorough, profound. He never permits the student to skim the surface of his subject, but takes him to its bottom, and by explanation and example lays the subject fully before him.
The formal, public inauguration of the school occurred Oct. 16, 1867. The inaugural address, delivered by Hon. Samuel Treat, LL.D., Judge of the United States District Court at St Louis, was an erudite compendium of the history of law.
Judge Treat was deeply interested in the development of the school, and was for several years President of the Faculty.
He retained his connection with the institution until recently, when failing health compelled his retirement from the bench and from the active duties of life. A gentleman of the "old school," a lawyer of high attainments, and a judge of unimpeachable integrity and unswerving devotion to duty. Judge Treat has left upon the St. Louis Law School, as well as upon the members of the bar who practised before him and the community in which he lived, the imprint of a remarkable personality.
The school was organized without endowment of any kind. By arrangement of the Board of Directors of the University, certain of the necessary expenses were to be paid out of the University treasury; all others were dependent on the income from tuition fees. No salary was provided for the professors. Nor was there any prospect of pecuniary reward for them, save in the chance that there might be a surplus from tuition fees after paying expenses. How slight such a chance seemed at that time must be apparent. Theirs was indeed "a labor of love,"—love for the profession, and desire for its advancement.
That the Faculty entered upon their work in this spirit is emphasized by their action when, at the end of the second year, a probable surplus of $1,700 having been reported by the Dean, the entire sum was, by unanimous vote, appropriated for the increase of the library.
Nor had the school at the outset a single book to constitute the beginning of a law library. Yet, by the end of the first year, the library comprised four hundred and eighty-three volumes, which were obtained
