The Editor's Bag of Court, but we would not advocate such a system of control by private agencies. If law schools are to be dele gated this important function, they should exercise it under statutes which prescribe in general terms the standard to be maintained for admission and give to some public authority the power to select the institutions which shall be approved as supplying the kind of preparation which the statute requires. Under such a system the conferring of the degree of Bachelor of Laws, granted by an approved law school, might entitle the recipient ipso facto to become a member of the bar of the state on tak ing the oath in court. But what guar anty would be given the state, under such a plan, that the law school in be stowing its degrees would give due atten tion to the moral fitness of the candidate for admission? The cases in which the degree would need to be withheld from students satisfying the test of scholar ship would probably be rare, but assum ing that to be the fact, in those rare cases it would not be practicable to demand that the institution should de part radically from educational practice by withholding a degree from any one whose attainments in scholarship are high. This is the first difficulty in the practical operation of the plan. Other difficulties suggest themselves, such as the embarrassments which would interfere with fulfilment of the invidious task of selecting a list of approved law schools, the disadvantages that would attend the admission of candidates from law schools possessing low standards as compared with those of others, the lack of a uniform standard of admission, and the features of monopoly that would bear heavily upon the student who might prefer to prepare for the bar in some other way than by entering one of the approved schools.
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There is something farcical and child ish about an examination by state law examiners of candidates who have already satisfied the exacting intellec tual requirements of a course in one of the best law schools in the country. While it seems idle and fruitless to re examine such candidates, the plan of admitting them directly from the schools does not appear to be workable. At the same time some compromise between the existing system and the one proposed is perhaps possible, which would tend to the maintenance of a higher level than is possible under the present system of double examinations. It cannot be said that the advantage of such a double system, in the check which one part of it may be supposed to exert on the other, equals the advantage that could result from efficient and responsible con trol by a single agency entrusted with both the preparation and admission of candidates. Is there any way, then, in which an important public function can be devolved upon the universities in addition to the work they are now performing? THE TREATY POWER AND "STATES' RIGHTS" THREE views of the political system of the United States are possible: (1) that it is a government of sovereign states possessing certain reserved powers, the residue of the powers of government being delegated to the central govern ment; (2) that it is a government of divided powers, so arranged as to secure an equilibrium between the internal government of the states and the general government of the aggregate; (3) that it is a government of specific powers vested in and reserved to the general government, the residual powers being devolved upon the states.
