nations which they not infrequently fail to pass.
If, as is generally believed, the influence of the St. Louis Law School was chiefly instrumental in producing this change, no one is likely to question the beneficial effect of the school, though this were the only advantage traceable to it.
The first class was graduated May 10, 1869, and numbered twelve students: M. Dwight Collier, Daniel Dillon, John W. Dryden, James S. Garland, J. Preston Player, P. J. TaaffeJ. T. Tatum, all of St. Louis; and W. E. Hall, Arrow Rock, Mo.; J. H. Nicholson, Perryville, Mo.; G. S. Robinson, Normal, Ill.; C. H. Lee, New Florence, Mo.; and Philip Sutherlin, Marble Hill, Mo.
Most of these have attained and are maintaining honorable positions at the bar. J. Preston Player subsequently became the law partner of Henry Hitchcock, but a few years later died, after a successful though brief career at the bar. Daniel Dillon was elected Judge of the St. Louis Circuit Court in 1884, and still holds that office. M. Dwight Collier is a well-known member of the New York Bar. The school rapidly grew in numbers and prosperity, and in 1871 it had fifty-six students. In the same year, through the gift of $6,000 from an unnamed friend of the institution, six scholarships were provided for poor young men, a prize of $50 was established for the best thesis in the graduating class, and $5,000 was expended in books.
Some changes had occurred in the Faculty. Judge Treat resigned his position as Professor, though remaining President of the Faculty; and Alexander Martin, who had been Assistant Professor, took Judge Treat's place. Lawyers who have examined the later numbers of the Missouri Reports are familiar with the carefully prepared and able decisions of Judge Martin as one of the Supreme Court Commissioners.
In 1870 Henry Hitchcock was compelled by ill-health to resign his position as Professor in Contracts and Mercantile Law, and also his office as Dean; and George M. Stewart became his successor. About a year later, Mr. Hitchcock, having regained his health in travel abroad, was made Provost of the Law School, and resumed active work in its management and instruction. Subsequently, on a reorganization of the Faculty, Mr. Hitchcock was again chosen Dean, and devoted more of his time and thought to the school than ever before, till the demands of health and the pressure of professional duties compelled his withdrawal.
Judge Samuel Reber, Judge Chester H. Krum, Judge R. E. Rombauer, Judge J. D. S. Dryden, Hon. George W. Cline, and Hon. John W. Noble have, at different times, contributed their learning and experience in the instruction of different branches of Jurisprudence.
In later years the chair of Contracts and Commercial Law has been filled by G. A. Finkelnburg, a member of the St. Louis Bar since 1859, in which year he graduated at the Cincinnati Law School.
At the opening of the school Albert Todd, Esq., consented to accept the professorship of the Law of Real Property. He was admirably equipped for the duties of this chair. His long and varied experience at the bar, supplemented by ripe scholarship and diligent habits of study, assured the friends of the enterprise that he would prove a most valuable aid in giving to the school at the outset a character for thoroughness in all it might undertake to do. These friends were not disappointed. The same rare power of condensed but lucid statement, of apt and simple illustration, which had commanded for him the admiration of the bench and bar, enabled him to demonstrate to his classes how interesting and simple the Law of Real Property can be made by one who, having mastered it himself, possesses the faculty of imparting what he knows to others. But Mr. Todd's declining health compelled him to give up the more onerous duties of his
