instructor in its annals. Every student seemed the especial object of his solicitous interest. He not only acted as director, confessor, and inspirer of his pupils during their stay in Cambridge, but somehow found time to correspond with them, often for years, after they had scattered throughout the length and breadth of the land.
But enough of the instructors of those days. What of the students themselves, the embryonic LL.B.’s who filled the corridors of Dane Hall and assisted in holding down its benches? Then as now a considerable number in every class graduating from the College flocked somewhat blindly to the Law School. But a large proportion (sometimes rising to one half) of its students had no college training. Parker’s original plan of “a school for the instruction of resident graduates” was soon lost sight of, and the institution assumed a most heterogeneous character. The national reputation it early attained drew recruits, some entirely raw, some with a little office experience, from the most remote parts of the country. Aspirants from the Middle West elbowed ambitious lads from far-away California; and up to the Civil War the catalogues were full of fine old family names from the South. Requirements for admission there were none; attendance at the lectures, though very general, was wholly voluntary; for a degree the sole stipulation was enrollment as a member of the
