make for misery and crime and by creating and fostering those conditions which make for happiness and right living.

Vice will find little room for growth in a community where prevail living wages, healthful homes, equal opportunities, innocent amusements for young and old, and social justice; where the slum, the bawdy house, and the indecent show do not exist.

Now, if these conditions are to be brought about or hastened by legislation, and if the people themselves by means of the initiative and referendum are to take a controlling or even an important part in such legislation, the necessity of a highly intelligent as well as a moral electorate is very evident.

Not only shall we require the services of the skilled investigator and philosopher in the preparation of the new laws; not only shall we require the legislative expert in our national and state legislatures; but, above all, we shall require an educated electoratean electorate capable of appreciating the nature of the problems presented, and sufficiently acquainted with present conditions, both material and legal, to be able to judge of the wisdom of the proposed legislation, and vote intelligently thereon.

This does not mean that all citizens must become lawyers, but it does mean that the study of the law should no longer be left to the lawyers alone; it does mean that the law should cease to be regarded as a sort of black art, whose unaccountable results only the initiated can understand, but as a true science of which every educated person should have at least a general knowledge.

It is as impracticable for all of us to be thoroughly educated lawyers as it is for all of us to be thoroughly educated engineers, physicians, or political economists; yet it is very certain that educated men and women are rapidly coming to be sufficiently familiar with the basic principles of engineering, health, and political economy so that they are able to comprehend the expert discussion of questions in either science, and pass intelligent judgment thereon.

It would not be correct to say that they are experts themselves, but rather that they are becoming highly intelligent jurors, fitted to take intelligent cognizance of questions discussed by the experts.

This result has been reached rather by the general dissemination of books and periodicals treating of such subjects in familiar language than by systematic study in any institution of learning.

There has doubtless been much less of this sort of education in the law than in either of the other sciences mentioned. It is true that there are some legal periodicals which have a field larger than the legal profession, and there are some recently established magazines which are making an earnest appeal to educated men and women of all classes, with a view of bringing together all such people in the intelligent study and appreciation of legal problems. The modern legal text-book, however, is not an inviting object to the most intelligent layman. In most of them, philosophic discussion of legal principles has ceased, and they have become simply more or less perfect guides to that "myriad of precedent, that wilderness of single instances" known as the reports.

They are most valuable to the practicing lawyer, but are hardly more inviting to the layman than a dinner of husks set before a hungry man.

It is confidently believed that there is a well defined place for a work which shall cover the field of existing law comprehensively, concisely, and accurately, and which shall not consist of lifeless rules fortified by multitudinous citations, but which shall be a readable and accurate commentary upon the existing law, couched in language which may be easily understood by layman as well as lawyer-a work which will be a welcome addition to every private library, and which may be consulted with pleasure as well as profit by every intelligent citizen who desires to know the condition of the law upon any subject.

It is thought that the present work fulfills this idea; it is hoped that it will take its place as a luminous and complete commentary upon the existing law; it is hoped also that it will assist in solving the great problems of government under the direct control of the electorate, by materially hastening the day when the layman as well as the lawyer will not only have knowledge of the general principles of the law, but understand the reasons behind the principles as well, and thus be able to vote intelligently when the question of a substantial change in the existing law is submitted to the electorate, and discharge understandingly the many onerous and exacting duties which will inevitably fall upon the citizen of the Democracy of the future.

LEGAL ETHICS

BY

ORRIN N. CARTER, LL.D.*

1. Introduction. The legal profession may be most helpful or most debasing. Whether it is one or the other depends largely on whether it is made a trade or a profession. Learning, ability, industry and integrity rarely find more certain rewards than in the profession of the law. If, however, is followed solely for financial gain, its influence is most pernicious. No one should subordinate his standards of right and wrong to his success as a lawyer.

Lord Coke said, centuries ago, "I never saw any man of a loose and lawless life attain to any sound and perfect knowledge of the laws; and, on the other side, I never saw any man of excellent judgment in these laws, but was withal, honest, faithful and virtuous." Judge Sharswood, in our own times, thus admonished the profession: "Let it be remembered and treasured in the heart of every student, that no man can ever be a truly great lawyer, who is not in every sense of the word, a good man."2 A lawyer of great learning, but unrestrained by principles of

*

Justice, Supreme Court of Illinois; former President of American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology.

110 Ohio Law Reporter, p. 170.

2 Sharswood, Legal Ethics, p. 168.

morality, may be a menace to a community. No member of the profession should consider himself merely a private citizen. He is entrusted with a public service as well. As a minister of justice he occupies a double fiduciary relation, on the one hand to the public, and on the other to his clients. He might well choose as his guide the old German motto, "Ich dien" "I serve." His is a duty of faithful service -of fidelity to the community, to his profession, and to his clients.

As a citizen he should refuse to give countenance to abuses which may tend to bring the administration of justice into disrepute. Many believe that the profession at present is confronting the most serious perils it has ever faced. It is charged that it is losing the esteem and confidence of the public because it is now representing special interests-the great corporations-rather than the interests of the general public, as it did fifty years or a century ago; that in its struggle for the material things of life it is losing sight of the distinction between right and wrong. If there be any basis for these charges, then it behooves the members of the profession to bestir themselves.

2. Necessity for rules of ethics.-The rules in some jurisdictions that require candidates for admission to the bar to subscribe to a reasonable standard of ethics, as a condition to admission, are to be commended. Our professional habits are largely formed in our early practice. It has been stated by high authority "that many men depart from honorable and accepted standards of practice early in their