month after month, would be too great, however iron his constitution might be.

No lawyer will be able to acquire or handle a large practice, unless he gives it close attention. He must work hard for what he gets. Heaven always sells us the good things it bestows on us, says the French proverb.1 The lawyer pays something for success.

One who would succeed as a lawyer must stand ready to seize opportunities for rendering legal service. It is not enough to have the qualifications. He must be able to show that he has them. Emerson said: "Let any man learn to do some one thing better than the average man is doing it and, though he build his hut in the heart of a forest, the people of the world will make a pathway to his door." This may be true of a hand-worker. His products advertise themselves. "Good wine needs no bush." It is seldom true of the head-worker; never, until he has shown the public what his head can do for him, and for them. The lawyer cannot make such an exhibition of his powers, unless some occasion gives him a chance, and he is found ready to use it.

A most valuable habit of mind for a trial lawyer is quickness in mental action. He will sometimes have a sudden opportunity to make a point which must be improved the next moment, or never.

Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, when a young barrister, was defending one charged with murder before a

1"Le ciel nous vend toujours les biens qu'il nous prodigue."

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jury. The court sat in the evening, and as he was making his final argument, it so happened that the lights "Genwent out. Very soon the mishap was remedied. tlemen," said Coleridge, in resuming his speech, “you have seen how suddenly the light went out — how quickly it has been restored. It is in your power to extinguish the prisoner's life—but remember, if you do so, it cannot under any circumstance be replaced." There are few Coleridges and, were there more of them, few chances to make possible so striking an appeal as this. But there are often stages in a legal argument, which can be anticipated, that give room for the use of graphic illustration or epigrammatic phrase. Successful speakers prepare for them well in advance. Curran had the reputation of striking off happy phrases in his speeches, in the heat of the moment. friend asked him how this was.

A

"My dear fellow," said he, "the day of inspiration is gone by. Everything I ever said, which was worth remembering, my de bene esses, my white horses, as I call them, were all carefully prepared." 2

1 Crispe, Reminiscences of a K. C.,

p. 82.

2 Phillips, Curran and His Contemporaries, p. 383.

CHAPTER V

THE EDUCATION REQUISITE FOR SUCCESS IN THE LEGAL

PROFESSION

Three years' study needed. The terminology and salient points to be learned, first. Institutional instruction. The fundamental principles few, and simple. Studying in an office. Improvements in American Law Schools. Law Reports. Case-books. Judicial opinions with us the conclusive proof of what is law. Instruction in law, both as a science and as an art. Its philosophical foundations. Hegel's view. Study of legal history. Of great historical judgments. Law, a great anthropological document. The different methods of legal instruction. Lectures. Oral discussions encouraged. Dividing large classes. Case-books must cover less ground than text-books. Acquiring a sense of legal proportion. Study of the law of nature and moral philosophy. Of principles first, and authority afterwards. The increase of legal subjects postpones for most the study of comparative law. Law a progressive science. Sociology and Law. Pragmatic philosophy. Logic in law. Legal education useless for some. It requires some native gifts. Good students in other sciences, generally good in law. Continuing legal studies at the bar.

THE American lawyer needs two courses of education: one to fit him to study what law is and how it should be applied, and one to accompany and direct him in doing what he has been thus fitted for. His first course will occupy the whole period of his youth: the second should occupy the whole remainder of his life. Three years of his early manhood should be devoted to legal study from the standpoint of one who hopes to be a lawyer; the rest

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of his time on earth to legal study from the standpoint of one who is a lawyer.

The great need of the law student, at the beginning, is to get a general view of the salient points in the law of the country in which he expects to practice. This, of course, requires a knowledge of the terminology of legal science. A principle cannot be understood until it is stated in words of which, as thus applied, the student understands the proper meaning.

These points, and terms, and principles are best learned from short institutional treatises or institutional lectures. Of books of this nature, Lord Bacon, himself the author of one of the earlier ones, said that they must be clear and plain, "not omitting some subjects and dwelling too long on others, but touching upon each briefly, so that to a student afterwards coming to read the whole body of the law nothing may appear wholly new, but as that of which some little notion had been previously imparted (levi aliqua notione præceptum ')."

99 1

In some of the American States there are official codifications of municipal law as to most matters of the first importance in determining civil rights. In such States, those should, of course, be read at some stage in legal education, but as they greatly resemble each other this can generally be better deferred till shortly before applying for admission to the bar.

Thus far the beginnings of legal education involve no

1 Bacon's Works, 1803, Vol. VII, p. 458; Aphorism lxxxi.

special difficulty. "No conception held in common by a large number of men such as the members of a State or great community can be very complex in its nature or difficult of comprehension. This may be taken for granted as one of the laws of thought. Consequently the fundamental notions out of which the rules of law are derived must be of this simple character, since it is in the general acceptance and uniformity of these notions that the common law exists as such." An advocate who has been able to show to the satisfaction of the court that they support the claims which he presents, has won his case. He needs cite no authorities. One of the leaders of the New York bar in his day, (Francis N. Bangs), once said that "no man was fit to practice law, that was not able to practice it without law books." 2

The early American lawyers had few of them. They had studied their profession in lawyers' offices, and by attendance in court. In offices of capable men, who took a real interest in their pupils, this was in many respects no bad way. They received a hundred or a hundred and fifty dollars a year from each, and gave value for it.3 Business was not so pressing then as now. In the country, particularly, time often hung heavy on a lawyer's hands, and could be well devoted to actual instruction of his pupils, or examinations to see if they had read the books which he had recommended.

1 Reports of the American Bar Association, Vol. XV, p. 342. 2 Strong, Landmarks of a Lawyer's Life Time, p. 273. 3 A. M. Hamilton, Life of Alexander Hamilton, p. 159.