customary law, which is dignified by the name of common law, with old odd ends stolen out of the Corpus Juris Civilis, and at the end, after infinite labor, we have got a square peg in a round hole—a makeshift, unsystematic system of law, which we get on with very well perhaps, but which we must put up with as Touchstone did with Audrey: "A poor virgin, sir, an ill-favored thing, sir, but mine own." The course of legal instruction in France, where the curriculum is prescribed in detail by statute, and where the schools of law are held to a strict accountability to the State for the uniformity and efficiency of their work, makes strongly not only for a high standard of professional attainment, but also for or derliness and uniformity in legal methods. All the lawyers must be graduated from the school of law, all must reach preliminarily the same standard for admission, and all must complete the full prescribed three years course of legal instruction. Thus the French safeguard their system of law from any radi cal innovation, secure an intelligent con servatism in their jurisprudence, and provide the nation with a bench and bar of unrivalled attainment and efficiency, as compared with England, where there is practically no stand ard, and little systematic training, or with us, where the standard varies from what is very good to what is worse than nothing. If we studied the civil law more and made ourselves more familiar with its working, there would be less cant with us about the common law, and there would be, in conse quence, a constantly increasing tendency to improvement in our law and practice. We should realize that the legal horizon is not bounded by the North Sea and the Irish Channel, and we should be less and less enamored with chasing the phantom of the common law through an endless series of report books, world without" end. We should then give fair weight to the criticism of our
system by the continental jurists, who, for ex ample, look upon our rules of evidence as ar tificial and mediaeval, and regard our rule as to the burden of proof in criminal cases as a serious hindrance to the clue administration of the law against crimes. The aptness of the French procedure to the dispatch of the busi ness of the courts would commend itself to our admiration. We should discover that the decisions of the English courts have be come of comparatively trifling value to us, and we should contract a habit of looking elsewhere for illumination. With a fuller knowledge of French law and practice we should 'cease to carp; and crude generaliza tion on the subject from a too slender basis of fact, or from no fact at all, would disap pear. To regard things not done our way as necessarily bad is the last measure of provin cial folly. Seeing that in no civilized coun try on earth is justice so cheap and so speedy as in France, we might imitatively reform our own methods; and finding that nowhere else is the law of the family so well worked out and that nowhere else are the rights of wo men and children so carefully secured, and growing familiar with the smooth working of the system in all its ramifictaions, it would dawn on us that in nothing is French pre eminence more notable than in her jurispru dence. Neither in gowns nor in wines, neither in letters nor in art nor in architec ture, are they more at the forefront than in this. To this end—devoutly to be wished in the interest of American jurisprudence—we shall do well, (inasmuch as when we seek in formation about Spain or Italy we do not think it wise to go to Amsterdam or St. Petersburg for instruction) not to depend wholly or even mainly upon English books or English views upon the subject. We must study French institutions through French channels of information. We must see with our own eyes, and read the story of her law in her own tongue.
