obstacles to the practice of the profession by women, inherent in the nature of the occupation, which have discouraged the study of law by them, so that few have availed themselves of the advantages of the Department.
The advanced efficiency of Law Schools is not marked in the increased length of the course more than in the increased number of hours of instruction per day. The Iowa Law School, as first organized, offered instruction to its students on three evenings of each week; afterward instruction was given daily. When removed to Iowa City, two hours of instruction per day were furnished, the two hours being occupied usually by one instructor on a single subject. Later a Professor of Pleading and Practice was added, who had a third hour each day throughout the year. When the course was extended to two years, provision was made for two hours instruction on distinct topics to each class. Lately it has been found expedient to give the juniors, during about half the year, a third hour of quiz on one of the topics of the other two hours. The seniors are urged and expected to review, with the juniors, one of the subjects of the junior course as a third hour's work. In addition to these hours each class has a General Term of Moot Court at least once each week, with Special Terms as often as required to try cases.
A comparison of the methods of teaching in the various Law Schools furnishes a topic of most interesting study, and the progressive spirit of the schools is shown by the fact that the question of methods is everywhere receiving attention, and causing animated discussion. Each teacher has something individual in his plan of work and each school claims some characteristics of its own, embodying to greater or less degree, diverse methods, but it would seem possible to class all in three groups, in which instruction is respectively by lectures, by study of textbooks, or by study of cases.
Of these three the first, or lecture system, is undoubtedly the oldest. The instruction at the Inns of Court in England, so far as any systematic instruction was given, was imparted in this way. The instructors at the Law School in Litchfield, Conn., which was by many years the oldest in America, were lecturers, and all the early attempts to introduce instruction in law into the University curriculums were by establishing courses of lectures. This method is still justly held in high favor. Its manifest advantages consist in the interest which an enthusiastic and skilful speaker may awaken in his hearers, and in the vividness of the outline which may thus be given by a few masterly strokes. For instance, in presenting to a popular audience or to beginners in the study of law its nature, main features, and mode of development, lectures are unquestionably most effective. But for a technical presentation of the principles of a particular branch of law, where the lecturer, in order to attain completeness and accuracy of detail, is compelled to reduce his propositions to a definite form of language, this method is not suitable. The necessity of adhering to words previously selected deprives the lecture of the interest which spontaneous utterance would awaken. The student feels compelled to take full notes,—for statements which the teacher has elaborated with great pains in order to secure accuracy are not to be trusted to the uncertainty of memory. In order that notes may be fully taken, the lecturer must proceed slowly; and on the other hand the student, fully engrossed in the mechanical labor of writing as fast as possible, has but little attention to bestow upon the thought and is in danger of losing important points in the lecture. His comprehension is dependent upon the re-reading of the notes he has taken, rather than his recollection of what has been said.
To obviate the disadvantages of the lecture system the use of text-books was introduced into the schools. Indeed, text-books themselves were often the result of the labor of a teacher in elaborating and completing
