In 8 States, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, and New York, there are boards of examiners who insist upon a higher standard than is demanded in other States.

A standard of general education is necessary in only 4 States: Delaware, Minuesota, New York, and Pennsylvania. In Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Vermont the student must register before beginning the study of law.

As was stated above, the attorneys-general of the different States concur entirely in the statement that the examinations for admission to the bar, as at present con ducted in the great majority of States, afford very inadequate tests of the applicants' knowledge of law. The examinations are sometimes conducted in open court. possibly toward the close of term, when there is little time for anything but urgent business, and perhaps each applicant is asked not more than half a dozen questions in law. Or if the examinations are conducted in private by a committee of lawyers, they are perhaps personal friends of the applicants, whose good will they desire to retain, and they have no methodic system of examination and attach little importance to it, for the result of one examination with two or three applicants would have little effect on the general standing of the profession, but if all the applicants for admission in the State were required to appear at some city in the State at one of two examinations in a year, and to undergo a full and searching written examination lasting two or three days before a State board of law examiners appointed for a term of years and given full compensation for their time and labor, the results of the examinations would be very important and would soon have a well recognized effect in elevating the standard of legal education. By the formation of an association of boards of law examiners of the different States, a uniform standard of requirements and methods might be adopted in a number of States as is being done at present by the State boards of medical examiners.

Although the young graduate in law can locate in almost any State of his choice, and find no difficulty in admission to the bar, there is one State where he may be interrogated more closely than he expected, and where not every ignoramus can assume the title of lawyer. It is eminently proper that the State of New York should lead in the reform of legal education, for its courts have sufficient legitimate work to do, without being burdened with controversies of no legal merit, and which intelligent lawyers would never institute. Other States are also sure to see the propriety of such regulations in order to shield themselves from the incompetency thrust upon them.

In New York every applicant for admission to the bar must undergo an examination before the State board of law examiners, and he is not allowed to take this examination at all until he has completed the required preliminary course of study, and he can not enter upon this preliminary course until he shall have satisfied the regents that he is qualified to begin the study of law.

Any one who has practiced law for three years in the highest court of law in another State or country may in the discretion of the supreme court, and under certain conditions, be admitted and licensed without an examination. Before an applicant is entitled to a law examination, he must furnish evidence to the board of law examiners that he is a person of good moral character, that he is 21 years of age and a resident of the State, that he has studied law according to the prescribed conditions for three years, or if a graduate of a college or university, that he has studied law for two years. Any one who has been admitted as an attorney in the highest court of original jurisdiction of another State or country, and has remained therein as a practicing attorney for at least one year, may be admitted to the law examination after one year of study of law. Before entering upon a law clerkship or attendance at a law school, an applicant must pass an examination, conducted under the authority and in accordance with the ordinances and rules of the University of the State of New York, in English composition, advanced English, first-year Latin, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, United States and English history, civics and economics, or in their substantial equivalents as defined by the rules of the university, but the regents may accept as the equivalent of the examination, first, a certificate of having successfully completed a full year's course of study in any college or university; second, a certificate of having satisfactorily completed a three years' course of study in any institution registered by the regents as maintaining a satisfactory academic standard; or, third, a regents' diploma.

In brief, it is required in New York that the applicant shall present evidence, first, that he has sufficient preliminary education to enter successfully upon the study of law; second, that he has studied law three years, or, if a graduate of a college or university, two years; and he must lastly stand an examination in law before a State board of law examiners.

INSTITUTIONS REPRESENTED AT HARVARD LAW SCHOOL.

In 1894-95 there were 404 students in attendance at the Harvard law school, and of these 305 were college graduates. Excepting one or two theological seminaries,

it is doubtful if at any other institution in the United States can be found collego graduates from so many different universities and colleges, distributed over so wide a territory. No one institution has a specially predominant number, if we omit Harvard University itself, which might be presumed more ascendant than to furnish only 140 out of 404 students. The other institutions almost invariably furnish only 1.2, or 3 students, the exceptions being Yale, which furnishes 19, Amherst 16, and Brown University 11.

Institutions in every section of the country are represented, and several in other countries. The University of California, which is about as distant as the national domain will admit of, sends 7 of its graduates; the University of Oregon has 1 for the northwest corner, and Texas University 1 for the southwestern, while Oberlin College from near the center of population of the United States is also represented. Including the representatives from Cambridge University, England, and Trinity College, England, and those from the universities in the provinces of Canada, there are in all 70 universities and colleges represented, and every section of the Union.

LAW IN UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES.

There can be no question as to the importance of a citizen having at least general information as to the principles of law, for in all business transactions some knowledge of law will be needed. It may not be necessary to understand legal forms and methods of procedure, but even here full knowledge in some one line may be valuable by rendering easier the acquisition of legal knowledge in other cases. Whether ne be a farmer, mechanic, builder, or merchant there will be many occasions when legal knowledge will be needed. He should not have to depend, when avoidable, tpon the honesty and character of men to be saved from financial loss. Upright daling is best promoted by its being known that unfairness will be detected and telligently resisted.

Moreover, few studies are better suited than law to develop mental acumen, to acenstom to close distinctions in interpretation of words, and in reaching logical conclusions. The methods of reasoning in trained and untrained minds are so different that men of equal natural endowments arrive at entirely diverse opinions. Notwithstanding the importance of general legal knowledge, universities and colleges include very little law in their courses of study. Constitutional and international law, it is true, receive attention in many colleges, but of the 430 universities and colleges in the United States in 1890-91 only 102 gave instruction in commercial law. It was very noticeable, too, that the large majority of those teaching commercial law were situated in the Central States-the great Mississippi Valley and adjarent States. Commercial law was not taught in a single institution of the New England States; in only 13 institutions of the great manufacturing and commercial States, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey; in only 9 in the South Atlantic States, and in 7 institutions of the Pacific States. Columbia College, New York, marks quite an exception by offering instruction in contracts, elements of jurispru dence, real estate, torts, criminal law and procedure, domestic relations, common law pleading and procedure.

The committee on legal education of the American Bar Association state that "Blackstone's Commentaries contain the lectures which their distinguished author read before the undergraduates at Oxford, and that Kent's Commentaries contain the lectures which the distinguished chancellor delivered before the undergraduates of Columbia College in the early part of the present century. The introduction of reclinical law subjects into the academic curriculum would not, therefore, be contrary to all academic precedents.

"The introduction of law studies into the academic curriculum is to be strongly commended in the interest of those who have no intention of ever practicing law, but who may well know something of the elements of the law as a suitable part of a liberal education. In that admirable lecture with which Mr. Justice Blackstone began his instruction at Oxford he declared that he thought it an undeniable position that a competent knowledge of the laws of that society in which we live is the proper accomplishment of every gentleman and scholar; a highly useful, I had almost said essential part of liberal and polite education. And in this I am warranted by the example of ancient Rome, where, as Cicero informs us, the very boys were obliged to learn the twelve tables by heart as a carmen necessarium or indispensable lesson, to imprint on their tender minds an early knowledge of the laws and constitution of their country.""

PRESIDENT JORDAN ON AMERICAN LAW SCHOOLS.

In the Forum of May, 1895, President David Starr Jordan contributes an article in which he says: "The various influences, German, English, and American, which are molding our higher education are joining together to produce the American university. And the American university, as Mr. James Bryce has clearly indicated,

is becoming an institution in every way worthy of our great Republic. Its swaddling clothes of English tradition are being cast aside, and it is growing to be American in the high sense of adjustment to the American people's needs. The academic work of the best American institutions is characterized by vigor and thoroughness, and in the free air that pervades them there is every promise for their future.

"In Europe professional training is in general the culmination of university education. It is not so in America. It is here rather a 'practical short cut' by which uneducated or ineducable men are helped to the rewards of knowledge and skill with the least possible loss of time. In most of our States provision is made for a system of public education, beginning with the common schools and culminating in the university. The law schools, however, in the different States form no part of this system. They are rarely ever in real alliance with it. Their place is with the 'Independent Normal' and the School of Oratory.' Instead of a requirement of general intelligence and a special knowledge of economics, history, literature, and language as a preparation for the study of law our schools have been eager to admit any one who could pay the required fees and perchance read the English language.

"It is thus true, as President Eliot has said, that into an American law school any man can walk from the street.' But in most of the States he can do better or worse than this. From the streets he can walk directly into the profession of law, disregarding even the formula of matriculation or graduation. Even the existence of the law school is a concession to educational tradition. It is possible with us to enter any one of the 'learned professions' with no learning whatsoever. In fact, in many of our States it requires no more preparation to be admitted to the bar than to be admitted to the sawbuck. Fortunately admission to either on these terms carries with it no prestige or social elevation whatever. But the danger in the one case is greater than in the other. The inefficient lawyer may work the ruin of interests intrusted to him. The ignorant physician is more dangerous than the plague. The incompetent wood sawyer harms only the woodpile. A large part of our criminal records is devoted to legal and medical malpractice. In other words, our bulk of crime is swollen by robbery and murder committed under the guise of professional assistance. When the professions cease to be open wide to adventurers and theives, they will rise to something of their traditional dignity. It has been said that the only 'learned profession' in America at present is that of the engineer. Men can not trifle with the forces of nature."

"Our people have always been willing to tax themselves to furnish a general education for their children. The common-school idea from the very first has included a liberal education. But in most of the States the people have at one time or another definitely refused to devote public funds to the making of lawyers and doctors. They would not, at their expense, help men into professions they believed to be overpaid as well as overcrowded. This policy has been a most short-sighted one. It has been responsible for the existence in every part of our country of hordes of pettifoggers and quacks, who rob the people instead of serving them. Incompetent professional service is always robbery. The professions are overcrowded simply because they have ceased to be professions. The remedy for incompetence is found in insisting on competence. This can be done by furnishing means by which com petence can be made possible.

"Moreover, the politicians of each country are, for the most part, its lawyers. Our lawyers are our rulers. We can never hope to see our States well governed till its lawyers are well trained. There can be no political conscience except as an outcome of political knowledge. Right acting can come only as a result of right thinking. The men who think right will in the long run act in accord with their knowledge. Those who have known that there is a science of human institutions can never wholly forget that fact. There can be no right thinking in matters of public administration without a knowledge of the laws of growth of human institutions. Only in accordance with these laws is good government possible. Of these fundamental laws of being the statutes of man must be an expression. Where they are not so the people have sooner or later a fearful score to pay. The Fates charge compound interest on every human blunder, and they have their own way at the last."

INCOMPETENCY OF LAWYERS.

[Frank C. Smith, of New York, at the Bar Association in Detroit.]

The profession of the law is organized for a mission, and that mission is to aid in the administration of justice. Our patents of nobility are the commis. ons given us by the State to serve in this capacity, and we are proven either worthy or nworthy of the trust reposed in us according to the measure of fitness, mental and mo. 1 and

Formerly true in medicine, but now medical schools require three and four years of study.—

A. E. M.

the former no less than the latter. And right here it is well to remember that law, and that includes justice, is effective and potent only as it is applied to the affairs of men; and that, as stated, our profession, is justly judged not by its accumulated knowledge of legal principles but by the result of its practical applications of those principles in the course of its appointed service. Every true lawyer is, therefore, interested in the record which his profession is making as the minister of justice, and anxious that only those who are fully equipped to properly serve in this ministry shall be given its high responsibilities.

The functions of the bar are no less important than those of the bench. It is the practitioner who conceives and advises litigation. It is he who gives it shape, who determines its character, who controls its issues, who conducts it through the courts and makes up the precise question which the bench is ultimately to decide. Upon him rests the duty of preparing the pleadings, of conducting the examination of witnesses, of supervising the making up of the record, of perfecting the appeal and securing a just hearing and determination of the issues by the court of final resort. If the practitioner fails in his judgment as to the proper action to be taken in any stage of the proceedings, the course of litigation is thereby embarrassed and complicated, the rights of parties are jeopardized, and often actually impaired and lost. The courts are thereby mistrusted, and the profession derided as incompetent to do the service which it claims as its especial prerogative. In other words, it is the practitioner and not the judge who is most largely responsible for the actual results of litigation. If men fail to secure their rights through an appeal to the courts it is principally because the lawyers who are intrusted with the conduct of the litigation fail to present properly these rights to the judicial tribunals, and this failure arises from the lack of a proper understanding of the rules of legal procedure.

It is a deplorable fact, of too general cognizance to require more than a statement thereof in this presence, that year by year the failure of remedial justice to meet the needs of the people becomes more and more conspicuous and disheartening. We know that to a very considerable extent the causes of this failure lie in the imperfect methods of legal procedure prescribed by the legislatures; but I repeat with emphasis born of convincing results of an investigation into the forensic practice of our profession which went deeper than that which it was my privilege to report to you last year, that, as compared with the incompetency of the profession as a whole, upon matters of legal procedure and practice, the just objections to the systems themselves are of minor influence.

It will be recalled that an examination of all the cases reported for the year covered by the General Digest of 1894 resulted in ascertaining that over 48 per cent of the points which were therein submitted to, and determined by, the courts of appellate jurisdiction in this country were upon questions of pleading and practice, in no sense involving the actual merits of the controversies. And it was strongly urged that this great proportion of such questions was monstrously disproportionate to the true province of legal procedure, and was a reproach to our profession, through whose ignorance or indolence, it was insisted, this fact was made possible.

I was desirous of learning how far questions of legal procedure were actually determinative of litigations, deeming that such information would enable us to form an accurate judgment as to the real quality of the work of the bar in the trial of causes. For this purpose I have examined the cases reported for the year June 1, 184, to May 31, 1895, with the following results: Total number of cases examined, 26,416. Of these, 1,052 were originally begun in the courts reported, leaving 15,364 which were heard on error or appeal. Of these 15,364 cases submitted to the appellate jurisdiction of these courts, 9,523 were affirmed and 5,841, or a little over 38 per cent, were reversed. Of these reversed cases 2,302, or almost 38 per cent, were reversed upon questions of procedure. In other words, of the reversed cases 38 out of every 100 so resulted because of the incapacity of the attorney in charge to properly present the merits of his cause for judicial determination. In 38 out of every 100 such instances, then, justice was either denied the litigant or to gain his rights he had to submit to the anxiety, delay, and expense inevitable in a new trial or in instituting a new action. And this because the certified member of the bar to whom he intrusted his cause did not know how to practice law.

Is it any wonder that men will hesitate and even refuse to submit their differences and their property interests to the precarious care of the average practitioner of the day when the records of our highest courts show that in 38 out of every 100 instances of reversal the cause is absolutely shipwrecked because of the mismanagement or stupidity of the licensed pilot? Men know these facts, if not these figures; and it is because the experience of the people for the last twenty or thirty years has proven to them the degeneracy of the bar, as the efficient servant of justice, that the masses so often regard a surrender of their rights as preferable to an attempt to secure their enforcement by a recourse to litigation.

A BETTER EDUCATION THE GREAT NEED OF THE PROFESSION.1

[By Justice David J. Brewer, of the United States Supreme Court.]

The lawyer is evermore the leader in society; and by society I do not mean that little coterie which lives simply to dine and wine, but that larger association of all individuals whose mingled labors have achieved the present and will work out the future of human life and destiny. In society, in this better sense of the term, the lawyer is the leader.

Temporarily, it is true, he may be displaced by the soldier. In the abnormal and chaotic movements which accompany revolution and war the lawyer is ignored. Inter arma leges silent. The man on horseback becomes the leader, and around his life there is a pyrotechnic splendor which has lifted him into undue prominence, and made him too frequently the central figure in written history. But his leadership is always temporary, and conditioned upon some disarrangement of the normal condition of human society. When life is moving on in peaceful and regular lines the soldier drops to his appropriate place, as simply the representative of force-the one ready to help the lawyer as the true leader in all efforts which make for the bettering of human life and the coming in of a higher civilization.

So, in the early days of New England, the minister, for a while, superseded him. Legislation denounced him, and society under its theocratic leadership endeavored to forbid his presence and exclude him from recognition. Washburn, in his Judicial History of Massachusetts, says:

"It was many years after the settlement of the colony before anything like a distinct class of attorneys at law was known. And it is doubtful if there were any regularly educated attorneys who practiced in the courts of the colony during its existence. Lechford, it is true, was here for a few years, but he was soon silenced, and left the country. Several of the magistrates had also been educated as lawyers at home, among whom were Winthrop, Bellingham, Humfrey, and probably Pelham and Bradstreet. But these were almost constantly in the magistracy, nor do we hear of them ever being engaged in the management of causes. If they made use of their legal acquirements it was in aid of the great object which they had so much at heart-the establishment of a religious commonwealth, in which the laws of Moses were much more regarded as precedents than the decisions of Westminster Hall, or the pages of the few elementary writers upon the common law which were then cited in the English courts."

It is curious to note some of the legislation aimed to dispossess the lawyer from his rightful position, and exclude him from even existence in society. In 1656 the following statute was enacted in that colony:

"This court, taking into consideration the great charge resting upon the colony, by reason of the many and tedious discourses and pleadings in the courts, both of plaintiff and defendant, as also the readiness of many to prosecute suits in law for small matters, it is therefore ordered by this court and the authority thereof that when any plaintiff or defendant shall plead by himself or his attorney for a longer time than one hour, the party that is sentenced or condemned shall pay twenty shillings for every hour so pleading more than the common fees appointed by the court for the entrance of actions, to be added to the execution for the use of the country." There was a crafty wisdom in this statute which commends itself to anyone of much experience on the bench, and I venture to suggest that a similar act would to-day be sustained by every court. By an act passed in 1663 "usual and common attorneys" were excluded from seats in the general court, as the Massachusetts legislature was called. But notwithstanding these efforts, it soon developed that the needs of society were stronger than the wishes of the theologic advisers, and little by little the lawyer was lifted in even that theocratic society into his proper and accustomed place, and there, as elsewhere in the land, became the recognized leader. To-day wealth is striving to dispossess him from his position of leadership, and money is used to secure position and control, but with the ordinary result that place and power acquired alone by such means simply expose the possessor to ridicule and scorn. It takes something more than a $200 silk nightshirt to make a man a leader in social forces, and whatever of prominence and notoriety money may purchase, it never purchases the power to change the currents of life.

Address delivered at the meeting of the American Bar Association at Detroit, Mich., August, 1895. From Proceedings of the American Bar Association, 1895.