with commercial usages and the statutory provisions governing the civil and criminal liability of individuals. We believe that the time has come to dispel the ignorance of the masses in regard to the laws of the land, and for a general study of that science "which distinguishes the criterions of right and wrong; which teaches to establish the one and prevent, punish, or redress the other; which employs in its theories the noblest faculties of the soul, and exerts in its practice the cardinal virtues of the heart; a science which is universal in its use and extent, accommodated to each individual, yet comprehending the whole community."

Sec. 8. WHAT PREVIOUS EDUCATION THE LAW STUDENT SHOULD HAVE.— Every particle of education one can possess along any and all lines will be of help in the study of the law. Even technical or professional training in the allied sciences would be advantageous, so no student of the law need fear that he may know too much. But the important question is, how much should the student know? Shall we look to the past method of legal education, or to the law schools of to-day to determine this question? In either event we shall find a great variety of answers. In the multitudinous examples of eminent lawyers we might cite, some were fully and carefully trained in the highest seats of learning, while others were without any of the advantages of the so-called higher education. Among the law schools and universities of to-day we find various standards; some requiring a collegiate education, including an extended course in

the dead languages and a term of years spent in perusing the theories and sophisms of the latest expounder of "isms" and "ologies," and others that leave their doors open to all who have a fair understanding of the English language and the ordinary branches taught in the common schools. In the universities and colleges the tendency is to raise the standard, and within the past few years the standard in some schools has risen from the lowest to the highest requirements. It is not our purpose to decry this raising of the standard of admission to law schools, though we may be pardoned for sympathizing with and repeating the conclusion of another writer who has canvassed these two methods of dealing with prospective students: "One shows the selfish side of learning, and the other the more liberal and praiseworthy. The former would deny entrance to the ranks of the profession to the ambitious poor man, while the latter would open the doors wide enough to take in any one who has ambition and energy enough to pursue the study."

Should the schools carry their advance standard to the extent of asking that these requirements be made part of the qualifications necessary for the admission to the bar, we should most seriously object. The ancient languages, and the varied store of ornamental education which go to make up university training should not be forced upon every youth who desires to set up as an expounder and practitioner of the plain and exact rules of justice and rights which make up our legal system. In America, we have had, and I trust may ever have,

two sorts of lawyers and judges, equally capable, honest, and beneficial. One sort came from the colleges, the other from the farms and workshops direct; one skilled in all the flowery phrases of antiquity, and overflowing with historical disquisitions upon legal theories; the other with the metal of their brain and heart robust and free and prepared to ring out loud and clear when struck by the unanswerable logic of progress, or wrung by the pleadings of oppressed humanity. "Men have worn the judicial gown who have never seen the inside of a Latin grammar, and they were none the less able judges, despite the fact." Andrew Jackson and Daniel Webster were equally necessary to mold and develop our civilization, though the former was but the rough, untutored frontiersman and the other the college-bred student. At the bar they were equally serviceable; and in the gravest affairs of state who shall say that the honest determination and direct Americanism of the staunch "Old Hickory" was not as much needed as the careful and profound declamations of Webster? Abraham Lincoln and William H. Seward again illustrate the two types of American lawyers. The former was home-made, his ideas of right and wrong were Godgiven and unbiased by the subtle theories of the past of human institutions; the latter was coached and crammed in the institutions of learning and was disposed to look askance at his more humble brother from the plains. Both were led to espouse the cause of the enslaved negro, and to do their utmost to vindicate his right to liberty and equality under the law. We are

permitted to judge whose influence was the greatest, whose words were the most potent to bring about a general recognition of a principle which is now fundamental. When we have decided whether the sublime yet unostentatious words of Lincoln or the pompous declamations of Seward were the most efficacious; and whether the uncouth but true-hearted executive, or his cultured and self-important secretary were most serviceable to the nation in its darkest hour, we shall have decided the controversy between the college-trained and the home-trained lawyer.

One of the prerequisite attainments of the student of law suggested by Blackstone is, that he be able to reason with precision, and separate argument from fallacy, by the clear, simple rules of pure unsophisticated logic; to fix his attention, and to steadily pursue truth through the most intricate deductions by plain mathematical demonstrations. This, we think, touches the keynote of the student's qualifications to begin the study of the law. There is no absolute need of his having a collegiate education; a fair grounding in the ordinary common school branches, supplemented by home readings on the history of the English and American people and the development of our social and political institutions will enable him to pursue the study of the law with the highest credit and advantage.

The languages, as Latin, Greek, French, would not assist the student as much as many suppose. True, the language of the law was at one time a compound and barbarous jargon; from the conquest of England in

1066 until 1363, legal proceedings were conducted in Norman French. In 1363 the statutes required the proceedings to be conducted in English and enrolled in Latin, and this was the general rule until 1730, when an act of Parliament required the records to be made in English. ( (Walker's Am. Law, 2.)

Some of the terms used in these early proceedings at law have remained, and have come to possess a definite technical meaning, but the student learns the meaning of these terms as he does the principles of the law, and thus comes to use them as clearly and correctly as though familiar with the language of which they formed a part. While a number of these technical law terms must be mastered, they are not favored in modern practice and many of them are becoming obsolete, and where suitable modern terms can be used they are to be preferred. Thus a fair knowledge of the English language is all that the student need have, and in the course of his study the terms derived from the older languages, as "bailment," "trover," "tort," etc., will become as familiar to him as the technical expressions, "hearsay," "rule in Shelley's case," etc., which are used by the profession. Our position is, that these terms must be analyzed and learned by the student; no one can comprehend them spontaneously, since they have come to have a set, technical application which cannot be varied and which no other expression will convey.

A laughable incident is reported about a student who relied on his general information to answer the question: "What is the rule of law in Shelley's case?" his answer