to his former students higher honors even than those he has had or is further entitled to receive from the suffrages of his fellow citizens. It was his willingness to sacrifice himself to the improvement of legal education which later inspired Judge Sharp to devote so much of his time to the cause maintained by this section.

Coming from Yale Law School in the front rank of his class he returned to Baltimore and was called to the bar of Maryland in the autumn of 1875, where he soon established himself in a remunerative practice and in the higher walks of our profession. Without being definitely advised, I am quite sure he never accepted a retainer on the criminal side of the courts, while I know from his own lips, certified by the position he has taken at the meetings of this association, that he never lowered his standing at the bar by receiving a contingent fee, and always abhorred those who would degrade our profession to a trading commercialism.

While never a politician, in the professional acceptance of the term, he was nevertheless a firm believer in the principles of the Republican party, by whom, as also by his brethren of the bar, he was regarded as so well fitted for judicial office as to give him the nomination for the Supreme Court of Baltimore in 1888, and for Attorney General of Maryland in 1891. While he failed of both of these elections, owing to the normally great majorities of the opposition party, he received many more votes than his colleagues on his tickets, and in 1897 was elected by a handsome majority to the bench for which he had first been nominated. His term would have expired in 1913, but he would have been assured of a return, and without serious opposition, owing to the record he had made as a learned, honorable, and upright judge. He was rarely reversed in the Court of Appeals, and his opinions are models of clearness and legal learning. The only criticism I could raise against his judicial career would be that he might have been inclined to lean backward, a somewhat negative fault, and one which would not be urged against the bench in some sections of other states. He often said to me that his chief regret that he was not at the bar lay in the fact that he was of necessity separated from the friendship of his professional brethren. So it was that, as my clientage was chiefly in another state and did not extend into the jurisdiction of his court, we were able to preserve a friendship commencing in our young manhood years and extending to the day of his death-an intimacy I could not have maintained, had my causes been likely to have come before him, but giving me the opportunity to know him with a familiarity few, if any, others enjoyed, whereby I possessed his entire confidence and had a peculiar knowledge of his high character and eminent qualities of heart and brain. I would sum up George

more noble, more ethical, more the gentleman in the best sense, more fair in judgment, less swayed by passion or prejudice, less inclined to degrade the high position of the lawyer, and less improperly approachable as a judge ever entered the ranks of our profession or wore the judicial ermine.

Of his literary work, his lectures at the Yale Law School during some thirteen years, and his labors in the cause of legal education stand out most prominently. The reports of this Association bear record of his labors in the Section of Legal Education. Another has treated the subject more satisfactorily, but a short review of Judge Sharp's work in this direction may be acceptable. Being a man of high ideals, he naturally sought to do all in his power to elevate the standards of our profession. He believed a lawyer should be first a gentleman; that he should have at least fair literary attainments, combining therewith some business education, and a mastery of the principles of the law, with sufficient practical ability to apply them to the facts arising in his causes, or in the duties of the office practitioner. He attributed the rather alarming number of undesirable and unfit young men then seeking and often gaining admission to the bar to a want of a literary and technical legal education, owing largely to the laxity of law school methods, and the moneymaking motive back of many of the schools. He looked beyond the earning possibilities of the profession to the maintenance of the ancient and honorable prestige of the bar, and its almost unlimited influence upon both public and private affairs. With this broad view of the subject he held that superficial and local remedies would not accomplish the desired results, and so determined to use his influence and direct his energies toward advocating and bringing about certain radical reforms, which he and his associates in this work believed would effect a permanent cure for many of the ills from which the profession was suffering.

This Association seemed to offer the best facilities and promised the greatest assistance in undertaking this rather uncertain, but surely laborious, task. For several years and prior to the formation of this section the Committee on Legal Education, of which Judge Sharp was one of its most active members, undertook to gather the fullest possible information as to the then condition of legal education in the United States and other countries. As the result of this wideextended investigation, several exhaustive and most interesting reports were submitted to the Association, accompanied by elaborated tables of statistics made up from the catalogues of all the law schools of our country, and in these labors Judge Sharp had large share, and to them devoted much time and attention. From the reports and statistics it clearly appeared that education

in law schools had largely superseded the old method of office training, and that from then on they would be largely responsible for the character and efficiency of the bar; but it was also apparent that a lamentable condition existed in the lack of proper and uniform requirement for entrance into these schools, curriculum, length of course, etc., these institutions varying all the way from the most unsatisfactory one-year school with night courses, through a better class with two-year requirements, to satisfactory schools requiring three and four years' attendance. To cope with a situation at once so grave, important, and far-reaching necessitated thought, energy, and action, resulting in the erection of this section, and in which Judge Sharp served faithfully for about ten years as its secretary, during all of that time enthusiastically giving of his time, ability, and energy.

He lived to see fulfilled many of the reforms for which he had so diligently and energetically labored, including the adoption very generally of State Boards of Law Examiners, in place of the much-abused custom of local admissions theretofore prevailing. It was fitting that he should have ended his career in this cause after being chosen your chairman; an honor he highly appreciated and a duty he would have acceptably performed.

After an illness of but a few weeks he fell asleep on July 7th last, in full possession of his mental activities, assured of his spiritual welfare, and facing death firmly and with a brave heart. His memory is enshrined in the hearts of those who valued his friendship. He possessed the full regard of his judicial associates, and the high respect of the bar, while in this Association, and particularly in this section, his work remains an enduring monument.

Owing to lack of space, it is impossible to report in this issue of the American Law School Review all the proceedings of the meetings of the Section of Legal Education. The following extracts, however, from papers read and remarks made will doubtless be of interest to the readers of this magazine:

From the paper entitled "The Study of

Roman Law in American Law Schools," by Simeon E. Baldwin, of Connecticut:

The lawyers of Louisiana, by force of circumstances, were compelled to study Roman Law, to gain light as to the meaning of the Spanish and French codes. But elsewhere,

with occasional exceptions, such as that offered by Hugh S. Legare, of South Carolina, John Pickering, of Massachusetts, and John Anthon, of New York, it received almost no attention from the practicing American lawyer, and little from the American law student, during the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century.

It was taught as an elective study in Latin at Yale College by one of the tutors (Joseph G. E. Larned) in 1843, and from 1848 to 1851, at the Harvard Law School, by Luther S. Cushing, the author of "An introduction to the Study of Roman Law," published in 1854. In the next decade, Professor James Hadley, of Yale College, gave a short lecture course upon the subject, then to the academic students, which he soon afterwards repeated, from year to year, in the Yale Law School. Instruction in the subject was offered at the Columbia Law School at about the same time, as a part of the courses devoted to Public Law and Political Science; and a distinct chair of Roman Law was established in 1891.

From the beginning of the last quarter of the nineteenth century the importance of the topic has gained fuller and fuller recognition, and, though still regarded as among the minor ones, regular instruction in it has now been long given in a number of our law schools.

The organization of graduate courses in law schools, begun at Yale in 1876, has done much to strengthen this tendency.

Roman Law is nowhere, I believe, made a required study for the ordinary bachelor's degree, but is when Bachelor of Civil Law or Doctor of Civil Law is sought.

The undergraduate instruction is mainly by lectures, with references to text-books (including the Institutes and cases). In the graduate courses, the sources are consulted, and the student has an opportunity to make himself familiar with the Institutes of Justinian, the Commentaries of Gaius, and some * * * of the more important titles of the Digest.

In addition to the English text-books on the Civil Law or Roman Law, there are several

of American origin. Professor Theodore W. Dwight, of the Columbia Law School, brought out, in 1864, an edition of Maine's "Ancient Law," with an introduction especially designed for the use of law students. Professor Hadley's "Introduction to Roman Law" appeared in 1873. Chancellor Hammond published in 1875 an edition of Sandars' translation of the Institutes of Justinian, with an introduction, afterwards put out separately under the title of the "System of Legal Classification of Hale and Blackstone in its Relation to the Civil Law." "Essays in Anglo-Saxon Law" followed in 1876, which compare that legislation with the beginnings of the Roman system. In 1884 Professor Morey, of the University of

Rochester, published his "Outlines of Roman Law," and in 1896 Professor Sherman, of the Yale Law School, brought out his edition of Bernard's First Year of Roman Law. England has done more than the United States in adding to the literature of instruction in Roman Law, though less in the practical work of such instruction.

Until 1870 it was hardly taught there save in name. Ambassador Bryce then succeeded to the position of Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford, and held it until 1893. He gave some thirty lectures annually, and, like everything that comes from his hand, they were very carefully thought out and effectively expressed. In his inaugural address he said, as to the direct money value of the study, that "a man in brisk practice will find many occasions in which the knowledge of foreign or colonial law is of great value to him." In his closing lecture, twenty-three years later, he said that experience had convinced him that such occasions were very rare. He remained, however, of the opinion which he had expressed in 1870, that if two men began a three years' study of law at the same time, one giving his first year wholly to Roman Law, and the other confining himself from the first to English Law, the end of the period would find the former ahead.

May I venture to state what Roman Law has been to me, for one's own experience, after all, is always the best worth telling? I was attracted to its study, when a young lawyer, by the influence of Professor James Hadley, who was then teaching it at Yale, and by his advising me to read Maine's "Ancient Law." His death occurred soon afterwards, and I succeeded him as lecturer on the subject in the Yale Law School. What I learned of it kindled my enthusiasm, and fed whatever taste I had for classical scholarship and for the history of institutions; but, like Mr. Bryce, I must own that I have seldom found the opportunity to make much practical use of my knowledge.

In lecturing on the subject, which I began in 1875, my plan was to examine the class briefly, before each lecture, on what had been said in the preceding one, and also on some case given out for the purpose. Of these cases eleven were printed for their use, the course stopping with twelve lectures.

As to how far I have found the Roman Law worth bringing forward for practical use, as a lawyer or a judge, I will say that in 1872 I made some reference to the first book of the Institutes in arguing an injunction suit. In 1879, in an action turning on the construction of a will as to the rights of a substituted legatee, I quoted several passages of the Digest in support of our claims, but I think without making any particular impression on the mind of the court. The next year I was counsel for

the owner of the legal title to a considerable part of a Connecticut village, which was in the possession of numerous occupants, who had put permanent improvements on the land. I recovered judgment in ejectment against one of them in the Circuit Court of the United States, and he thereupon, on an ancillary bill for an injunction, claimed the benefit of an "occupying claimants" statute. His counsel relied on the case of Bright v. Boyd, 1 Story, 478, 2 Story, 605, Fed. Cas. Nos. 1,875, 1,876. I argued at considerable length that, while professedly founded on the Roman Law, they went beyond it; but all my quotations from the Digest failed to convince the court that Judge Story was in error.

In a case before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, in 1890, involving the validity of a decree made by three visitors of a theological school, one of whom it was charged came to the hearing with a prejudice against the party, a professor in the school, whose conduct was in question, I quoted the Roman law on two points; but the case went off on another. It so happened, however (and the anecdote is no bad illustration of the truth that slight causes often produce important results), that one of the auditors at the trial was a young man then studying Roman Law. He remarked my allusion to it, and looked up the point in the books. His attention became engaged in the subject, he took a new interest in his studies, and the final result was that he has made the teaching of Roman Law the main work of his life.

While on the bench, I had this case to deal with: A guest at a Saratoga hotel, who had bought tickets to New Haven by way of the Hudson River Railroad from Albany, was given by the hotel porter a check for his trunk to New Haven by way of Springfield on the Boston & Albany Railroad. The trunk was lost in consequence of the falling of a defective bridge in Massachusetts. What duty did the Boston & Albany Railroad owe its owner?

In reasoning this out in the opinion of the court, which I wrote, we relied in part on the Roman Law doctrine, partially set forth in Coggs v. Bernard, Ld. Raym. 909, as to the liability of depositaries, confining it to negligence that is really culpable, which in the case at bar could not be claimed. Here we quoted both the Institutes and the Digest.

In an opinion published in the same volume, I referred at some length to the Roman Law in considering the foundations of jurisdiction over nonresidents; and it was also made a subject of discussion in a dissenting opinion.

I now recall no other cases in the argument or decision of which I have had occasion to make use of what I know of Roman Law. Nevertheless, I am glad of

every hour-and there have been manywhich I have ever spent on its study. And here I can agree unreservedly with Mr. Bryce in his remark that it is not so much because English Law is like Roman, but because it is unlike, that the study is really to be recommended. It helps us to realize what our own law is, if we are able to compare it intelligently with any system of foreign law; and most of all are we thus helped by the law of Rome, because it was once the law of all civilized nations, and is still the force underlying that of most of them.

Simply for what it is, in itself, however, it is assuming everywhere a position of larger importance since the creation of the Hague Tribunal and the movements that promise soon two courts of international justice. The judges, in causes coming before that tribunal and those courts, will be, for the greater part, men trained under the Civil Law. To the American lawyer who argues before them it will be all-important to distinguish their point of view, and to find some common ground from which to start. A knowledge of Roman Law, at least in outline, and sufficient familiarity with its literature to tell him where to look for its rules on any particular point, is almost a necessity for what we call the "international lawyer."

From the paper on "The Advisability

of a Law School Training as a Prerequisite for Admission to the Bar," by John B. Sanborn, of Wisconsin:

It seems to me that the time has arrived when we can say to the student that it is not alone enough that he study for a time in his own way and then pass a bar examination, but that one can say to him that he spend a portion at least of that time in a professional school of proper standing.

The increased complexity of social and business relations, the growth of fortunes and of corporations, the increase in the legal regulation of the affairs of every person, all demand of the lawyer, as a lawyer as well as a citizen, an equipment superior to that required a quarter of a century ago. It is true that we cannot expect that all lawyers will be prepared to advise in affairs of great magnitude; but all lawyers are more or less affected by the changes in society, and they all must be prepared to meet the problems which these changes have brought about.

To meet this added demand upon the lawyer, are the present unrestricted requirements of preliminary legal study sufficient? Do they allow a sufficient test of the candidate's ability, when they depend so much upon the examination alone? In addition, is there something in the law school training which fur

nishes something, not obtainable elsewhere, which is indispensable to the proper equipment of a lawyer?

If there is anything in the example of other professions, one would say "Yes." In many states an examination for a license to practice medicine, dentistry, or even veterinary medicine, can only be taken after a full course in a professional school of prescribed standing. In my own state of Wisconsin the prospective doctor or dentist must have this preparation, while examinations for the profession of law or barbering may be taken without it. The argument may be a weak one; it may be no argument at all; but I confess that, when I see that a doctor's training involves study in a professional school and a lawyer's does not, I feel that the medical profession is setting a higher standard than the legal.

Why has there been this change in the requirements for medicine? What does the medical school furnish which the doctor's office does not, sufficient to furnish a justification for the demand that a doctor receive his training in a school? I presume, if you put this question to a doctor who had considered the matter, he would say that the medical school gives trained instructions, particularly in the pure sciences, and furnishes laboratory work and clinics.

He would tell you that the doctor in active practice may have neither the training, the ability, nor the time to give a student in his office instruction in those fundamental sciences which underlie the more strictly professional work of the physician or surgeon, such as zoology, chemistry, and psychology, and that he is apt to be too specialized, as well as too busy, to instruct in the more practical branches of the profession.

He would claim that few doctors have the well-equipped laboratory with its facilities for analysis and dissection, or the range of materials upon which the student may work. For this the medical school, with its expensive equipment, is necessary for the proper foundation.

He would assert that only in the clinic, connected with the large hospital, where the student may see operations and treatment by leaders of the profession, can the student obtain the requisite knowledge to equip him to meet the various emergencies of his career.

It will not do to assume that the foregoing reasons, which undoubtedly apply with great force to the study of medicine, have any similar application to the study of law. We must recognize the wide difference in the teaching of the two professions. The law teacher cannot adopt the method of experimentation. Vivisection has not yet been applied, except perhaps by the young practitioner, to the study of law. I have sometimes wished that a law student might be in the happy condition of a medical friend of mine who studied in a certain foreign country much in repute

among students of medicine. He said that the peculiar excellence of this country, from the viewpoint of a medical student, lay in the fact that its doctors were strong on diagnosis and weak on treatment, whereby one could usually check his diagnosis by a post mortem.

We must admit that the clinical argument does not apply to the law school. The office is the place to learn practice. A trial in a justice court gives a much better training in the practice of law than does the best moot court ever organized. The student court can in no proper sense be compared to the medical clinic. I have become firmly convinced that the law school which tries to give instruction in the art as well as the science of practice, which leaves the fundamental principles which underlie all practice and attempts to follow the shifting codes and practice acts of various states, is wasting the time both of its faculty and its students. This should frankly be left to the office.

Nor does the law school furnish a laboratory in the true sense of the word. It should, however, give the student a library far superior to that which would be accessible to him in any ordinary law office. The working library of the lawyer, often sufficient for his practice and supplemented by a bar association, or court library in case of need, is not the library which is needed by the law student. It is too specialized, too narrow, for any proper training in the fundamentals of law. Nor does the student have free access to the larger libraries, if any exist in his locality, the use of which is usually too restricted to meet his needs.

The trained teacher is as important to the law student as to the medical student. Only in the law school can one receive any systematic instruction in the fundamentals of the substantive law. The lawyer in active practice knows little of the real principles of pleading, of real property, of trusts, or of equity, unless the litigation which he has been in has led him in some one of these directions. Only in the law school can a student receive training in the analysis of cases, in the application of general principles to a stated body of facts, or in the contrasting or harmonizing of various decisions. The office student does something of this, not as a student, but as a partisan advocate, and even then is spasmodic and unsystematic.

It thus appears to me that the law school must leave to the office, either before or after admission to the bar, the clinical work of real practice, and must base its claim to a required place in the preparation for bar examinations on the fact that it alone can furnish the student with a library in which to study and a systematic training in the fundamentals of the science of law-namely, its general substantive principles and their application to various states of facts.

If

these are indispensable, and if the law school alone can furnish them, and I think both propositions are true, then law school training should be a part of the preparation of every law student.

From the paper on "The Crisis of the Law and Professional Incompetency," by Frederic R. Coudert, of New York:

The bar can no longer afford to blink the fact that "the law" has become thoroughly unpopular. It may be that this unpopularity is in whole or in great part undeserved; but, in any event, we are not justified in refusing to examine into the question whether this be so or not. Popularity is no sure index of right or wrong. There is no divine justice in the judgment of a mob, and the opinion of the man in the street upon so big a matter as the law may be of little moment; but when in our community a feeling is widespread, intense, and of long duration, it is not safe to refuse to examine into its causes. The course of the Reformation might have been substantially modified and the excesses of the French Revolution wholly avoided if the governing classes had not been quite so complacently unheeding of popular discontent.

The ordinary individual is either in some bread-winning business, or owns some property, or both. At any time he may feel that his personal or property rights have been infringed. Naturally, and in an ideal community, he would seek the advice of one skilled in the law, and would place himself under the protecting ægis of justice for a full vindication of his rights. In practice, however, it is notorious that the ordinary individual, unless he is wealthy, idle, or temperamentally litigious, shuns the courts. This is mainly because of the great expense and delay which cause him to believe that he had better forego (especially if he has ever been in a lawsuit) the attempt to vindicate his rights, rather than subject himself to a procedure which he does not understand, and to be engaged in litigation the end of which he can neither foresee nor foretell. He thus contents himself with making the best settlement he can, if any, and becoming an embittered critic of the law.

This is not a new evil. In the first half of the nineteenth century in England it was said that no man in middle life, beginning a suit in equity, could possibly hope to live to see the end; and yet in the English law courts matters are now disposed of with an expedition, a rapidity, and a substantial justice which put us so-called progressive Americans to shame. Why is it?

Law reform is no new cry. In New York state it has been mooted, agitated, and enact