more a matter of proficiency in an art than mastery of a science. The 20 per cent, at the bottom of the next column (b) is for those whose professional education was of the of fice, but who had the broader academic basis of a college degree. As I have already said, we have no means of knowing how many col lege men went directly into practice without the medium of the professional school, in the legal fraternity as a whole; but it seems prob able to me that not as many as one lawyer in five has done so. If this be true, we must conclude that the college course, even with out other dependence upon the schools, in creases one's probability of success. But column b does not include all the college educated men: we find them also (in combi nation with other courses) in columns f, h and;', giving us a total of 45.9 per cent, with a bachelor's diploma in arts or science. This, we must bear in mind is for the picked men. For the rank and file we have already shown the percentage to be not more than 20 per cent. A comparison of the two can hardly leave any doubt of the wisdom of taking the broader college course if one has "hitched his wagon to a star" in the legal firmament. With one college man in five of the whole profession and one in two of its picked men, the fact seems clear. Column с is for the professionally educated lawyers without ad vanced training along academic lines, and gives us a total of 12.5 per cent. Columns f and j also contain graduates of the law schools, and we have as a total for such among our picked men, 27 per cent. Strangely enough, this is a smaller num ber than for the profession as a whole, according to the figures already given. This fact I cannot explain. Figures at best are misleading, and it may be that there is something wrong with mine. If not, we are forced to the conclusion that during the last twenty-five years, the law schools have not formed the best avenues of approach to the high places in the profession,
and that the broader college training, to gether with an apprenticeship in the office, have best fulfilled the highest demands. We must remember, however, that this statement is made for a twenty-five year period taken as a unit, and that during that time the law course has been both lengthened and strengthened. What is true for the whole period may not be so for the later years with in it, and that this is so is at least suggested by the percentages for definite age groups in column c. Little is to be gained by a discussion of columns f, h and; considered separately, and I will say simply that 14.9 per cent, of the whole number of men considered, ahd taken a post graduate degree (A. M. or Ph. D.) which was not causa Iwnoris. Considered from the standpoint of the ages of those in cluded in the several educational classifica tions, it is noticeable (a and b) that the num bers of those who had carried their education no farther than the secondary school and also those who had depended for success upon their academic degree alone, so far as the schools are concerned, are decreasing: for the former, from 46.2 per cent, to 35.4 per cent. in six decades and for the latter from 23.1 per cent, to 14.6 per cent, in the same time. This is only what might naturally be expected in the severer competition of today; not only more use of our educational machinery is de manded, if the latter is what it pretends to be, but a fuller use of those parts of it espec ially planned to meet exact needs. The percentages in column c, with a some what gradual increase from 11.5 to 27.1 are in full support of the latter part of this state ment and bear evidence of the increasing value of the technical law course. For the latter classes, the number professionally educated among our picked men, consider ably exceeds the number among the rank and file, though hardly to the extent that we might reasonably expect them to. It is safe to say, however, that the gradual changes
