very few who began with the Junior class continued regularly through the Middle and Senior classes. They would drop out at the end of the first term, read the books of the Middle class at home privately or at a lawyer's office, and come back and enter the Senior class upon examination; or else they would read the Junior course at home, enter the Middle class upon examination, and remain through the Senior term. So they could really be kept in school but two terms of five months each. Our young men, for the most part, are limited in their means, and are not able to remain in school longer than is absolutely necessary; and in many cases it is important that they should go to work for themselves as soon as possible. This they will do whether we graduate them or not. For these reasons we have shortened the time and lessened the expense, and this we think has been done without omitting from the course of study a single important legal topic. By diligent application on the part of the student and the faithful assistance of his teacher, to which must be added the helpful method of instruction adopted here, a young man may with the least outlay of time and money obtain, not only a knowl edge of the law contained in the leading American text-books, which constitute the course of study, but also the advantage that comes of thorough drill in practice. We may be told that it once required an apprenticeship of seven years, before our English ancestors would allow the attor ney to engage in practice. That may have been necessary then, but it is not now. Anciently the law was diffused through many books, most of which were reports. Years of labor and observation in office and in the courts were necessary to give beginners any proper notion of the law it self and the practice; but now Blackstone, Kent, Story, Greenleaf, and others have collected the principles of jurisprudence from the vast number of reports, and have arranged, digested, and reduced them to sys
tem, and have brought them within a small compass. They have done for us what the British student had to do for himself. It is certainly, therefore, not hazarding too much to say that the modern diligent student can accomplish more in one year than the ancient student could in seven, — just as the modern railroad train can travel farther in one day than our forefathers could have gone with their road-wagons in ten days. Law schools cannot make a lawyer in one year, or even in three years. One must learn by long practice and experience. He is not likely to be trusted at first with more than he can accomplish. He must make mistakes and meet reverses, and these are necessary in order that he may grow, — just as the tree must be shaken by the winds, pinched by the frosts, scorched by the sun, and thun dered at from the clouds, before it can reach the stage of stalwart treehood. Why not, then, give him a start in some good law school, grant him a license, and let him take what small cases he might be trusted with? What else would more powerfully stimulate him? On what plan would he be more likely to feel encouraged? Why should we Americans keep our young men in the stu dents' limbo, because our English ancestors did many years ago? The course of study is as follows : — Junior Class. Caruthers' History of a Lawsuit; Stephen's Pleading; Kent's Commentaries, 3 vols.; Greenleafs Evidence, vol. i.; May on Insurance; Field on Corporations. Senior Class. Kent's Commentaries, vol. iv.; Barton's Suit in Equity; Story's Equity Jurisprudence; Bishop's Criminal Law; Parsons on Contracts. Here are seventeen volumes, all standard works, containing nearly 15,000 pages, and covering every subject of the law ordinarily encountered by the pracrtioner.
