1. The Majesty of the Law, and the Lawyer 2. The Cultivation of the Mind and Heart Incident to the Legal Profession 3. The Opportunities of the Lawyer for Pub- lic Service and Social Advancement. 12 30 142 1. The Charge that It Leads to Dishonesty 2. The Tendency of the Legal Profession to Foster a Spirit of Roughness and An- tagonism THE YOUNG MAN AND THE LAW CHAPTER I FOREWORD Choosing the profession that suits one's tastes. Roger Minott Sherman's comparison of the law and the ministry. Field of law constantly enlarging. The object of this book, and its order of arrangement. THE choice of any vocation, for entering which a long period of careful preparation is requisite, is generally irrevocable. The law is a profession of that character. It ought not to be adopted, therefore, without full consideration. Personal preferences and disposition should be given full weight. That is done best which is done gladly and with feelings of pleasure in the doing. For one to follow a calling which is distasteful, because unsuited to his powers and inclination, is to court failure from the start. Many years ago a theological student at Yale found himself with misgivings as to whether he had been wise in choosing the ministry for his profession. He had some leaning to the law, and wrote to Roger Minott Sherman, one of the leaders of the New England bar, asking whether he could not "be an active and useful Christian and be a lawyer." The reply was that the good of man required that all useful departments of human employment should be occupied; that the legal profession in modern society was necessary and useful; and that the main question for any one in choosing his life work was, What shall I love most to do? "I am aware," Sherman added, "of the force of habit, and of the deference paid to the maxim, 'choose the employment which is the most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.' This maxim is sophistical and erroneous. The enquiry is not, what employment is in itself most useful; but in what can the individual be most usefully employed? Habit may mitigate the pains of crossed inclination; but can never supply that energy which is derived from the current of the soul. 'In this 'tis God directs; in that 'tis man.' 1 Sherman's counsel was asked at about the same time by a successful lawyer of ten years' standing, who was thinking, from conscientious motives, of studying for the ministry. He replied to him thus: "One of the best schools for a practical divine is the bar. The amount of good which a person can perform as a minister if he attains the age of seventy, will be greater if he follows the practice of law for ten years than if his whole life were devoted to the clerical profession. Man must be drawn by the cords of a man: by those principles 1 Beers, Biographical Sketch of Roger Minott Sherman, Bridgeport, 1882, p. 38, |