SEEKING AN EDUCATION
the attention of the Judge, took the jury with them, and won their cases. They were prepared. The office where I was had a very large general practice which covered every field and took them into all the Courts of the Commonwealth but little into the Federal Courts. I assisted in the preparation of cases and went to court with the members of the firm to watch all their trial work and help keep a record of testimony for use in the arguments. It was all a work of absorbing interest to me.
The books in the office soon appeared too ponderous for my study, so I bought a supply of students' text books and law cases on the principal subjects necessary for my preparation for the bar. These enabled me to gain a more rapid acquaintance with the main legal principles, because I did not have to read through so much unimportant detail as was contained in the usual treatise prepared for a lawyer's library, which was usually a collection of all the authorities, while what I wanted was the main elements of the law. I was soon conversant with contracts, torts, evidence, and real property, with some knowledge of Massachusetts pleading, and had a
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