NOTES. 141
to legal education. Mr. Henry Budd began it in the February number of this year. He accused the schools of being instrumental in shorten- ing the time necessary for preparation for the bar, and^ more than that, of failing to give the thorough mental training and the ability to handle legal questions which, he maintains, used to be obtained under the old system of apprenticeship in a lawyer's office. To this attack Prof. H. W. Rogers, of the Michigan University Law School, replied in the June number, and was in turn met by another article from Mr. Budd in July. Rather aside from this discussion, but suggested by it, is a good description, also in the July number, of the case system of in- struction as used in this school, written by Mr. Sidney G. Fisher. ' Sure and rapid progress in legal thought can come on)y when law- yers enter the bar with trained minds, with a broad knowledge of law as a science, and with the highest ideals as to their duties. Therefore it behooves all who enter the profession to point out the way, so far as they can, by which this result shall be attained. Among the many experiments that have been made in this field, that of the Harvard Law School is certainly not the least important ; but it is very disap- pointing to see the ignorance which prevails among lawyers as to the scope and success of that experiment Thus Mr. Budd says that "ordinary law schools*' give "only sixteen months of actual instruc- tion ** and have no requirements for entrance. To be sure, he says that " there may be exceptions to the rule " ; but he seems to imply that he knows of none. The Harvard School, however, ever since 1877 ^^ required all candidates for a degree who are not college graduates to pass examinations in Latin and in *' Blackstone's Commentaries/' insisting that the papers be written with correct spelling, punctuation, grammar, and expression, and has lengthened the course to three years. Still more discouraging is the ignorance of our methods of study, such as was displayed by even so eminent a writer as Mr. Joel Prentiss Bishop in the January-February number of the "American Law Review."
The difference between the lecture system of instruction and the case system lies, not in the presence or absence of text-books or reports firom the student's working library, as Mr. Bishop implies, but in the use to which the books are applied. In the lecture system, the teacher prepares his lectures by original investigation, making his own analyses of the cases. The result of his studies he gives to his hearers in such form as he thinks best, referring to the cases as authorities. It is safe to say that in nine cases out of ten the cases are not looked up by the student, so that his only effort is that of trying to understand and re- member what he has heard. Of course that effort is considerable; but still from it the student has not received the benefit that his teacher received from the preliminary studies, because he has not had the intellectual exercise of extracting principles from cases and then stating them. In the case system, the cases are given out before the lecture. The student b then required to state them to the pro- fessor, indicating at the same time whether or not he agrees with the decision. Class discussion ensues, guided and controlled by the teacher. By this method the great principles of the common law are extracted from the authorities, not by the professor for the student, but by the student for himself under the guidance of the professor. Thus is ensured a regular and orderly study, which for the student has all the freshness and exhilaration of original investigation. Indeed, it
