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low, a 12mo. volume of 336 pages, giving the whole subject in a condensed form, and then a review of the whole subject in Judge Cooley's well known treatise. This will, perhaps, sufficiently illustrate our plan of study. Keeping in mind that the student had better know thoroughly a few things, especially if they are fundamental, than many things superficially, you will see the philosophy of our course. "Learning is the process of forming ideas." The teacher's part in this process is to stimulate the mind of the pupil to learn for himself. This he does, first, by ascertaining what the pupil already knows, and then by unfolding to him the next step he should take. If he does not fully grasp the proposition under discussion, the teacher seeks to remove the difficulties by analyzing it, illustrating it by pertinent examples, holding the mind of the pupil to the subject long enough to drive it home, so that he may get a clear and distinct conception of the principle, its connection with what he has already learned, and its limitation. Habits of accurate expression are also insisted on. Loose, illogical statements, always the reflection of loose, illogical thinking, are not allowed to pass unchallenged. The student is required to clothe his thoughts in appropriate language. These things are never attempted in an office, and are impossible in a lecture room.

STUDY OF CASES.

It connection with Walker, Blackstone and Kent, the student is obliged to make a careful study of the Illinois statutes and cases conjointly with the subjects treated by these authors, thereby receiving a practical drill in the use of cases, learning to make clear statements of the facts, the material questions of law and fact, the decision of the court, what was necessary to the decision of the case, distinguishing between the decision of the court, and the argument of the judge writing the decision, etc.

MOOT COURT.

Through the Moot Court we attempt to secure a practical application of the principles of the law. The court is held once a week by one of the faculty. The first six or eight weeks are devoted to a study and discussion of the practice in justices' courts and courts of record, from topics, mostly from our statutes, previously assigned to the students. Then the students are required to prepare and submit to the court, wills, other legal papers and statements of legal controversies, and from these statements and others prepared by the court, cases are assigned to the students who prepare pleadings, bring them to an issue, prepare briefs, argue the cases, and take all steps that could be taken in a cause from commencing a suit before a justice of the peace, or filing a præcipe, to a final argument in the Supreme Court, in all cases conforming as nearly to the practice of our several courts as the circumstances will admit—the court at every stage of the proceeding fully criticising, not only the papers prepared, but the student's thought, manner of presenting his thought and professional bearing.

LECTURES.

Our chief reliance as a means of instruction is, recitations from approved text books. We, however, use lectures once a week, to supplement some legal subjects imperfectly taught in the text books used, also on some political and historical subjects. The latter are designed to stimulate the student to investigate for him

self our political history, and some of the problems that are now pressing for solution, and some that are just rising into prominence on our political horizon, so that he may become a determining influence, and not a mere party parrot in the community in which his lot is cast. I know it is a favorite piece of advice from the old lawyer to the young practitioner to keep out of politics, advice you may be sure, he never listened to in his youth. I never give that advice to a student, first, because he would not, and second, because he ought not to heed it, if given. We cannot, if we would, separate the profession of the law from politics, the administration of the law in our courts from its formulation by our legislative bodies, and its enforcement by our executive officers. Lawyers make our laws, interpret them, ascertain the rights of litigants under them, best know what laws are needed, and what any statute can accomplish. It is a duty they owe to their profession, as well as to their country to be politicians,-I do not mean by this that they shall always be running for an office. Some of our most potent politicians, as the elder Blair and Thurlow Weed, never held an office, but that, whether Republican or Democrat, Prohibitionist or Mugwump, or what not, it is their duty to make themselves felt as an inspiration for political fidelity, for law and for liberty, to the political bodies with which they are connected. The courses of all our law schools are too full to allow them to do more than point out to the student a few of these subjects, allied to his profession, with which he ought to become familiar. If the student would progress beyond the A, B, C of his profession, he must be made to see the unity, the universality, the reign of law, so grandly expressed in Hooker's stately sentences: "Of law there can be no less acknowledged that her seat is in the bosom of God, her voice is the harmony of the world. All things in heaven and earth do her homage; the very least as feeling her care, the greatest as not exempt from her power. Both angels and men and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all, with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy." He must realize the moral order of the universe, its all-compelling, irresistible power, as it sweeps through the centuries. Clay and Webster settled slavery with their panaceas of peace, compromising the uncompromisable; Jefferson Davis, by secession, and the Republicans of '60, by excluding it from the Territories. Mere pasteboard cards to dam a Niagara. As mighty changes are passing before our eyes, if we had the open vision to see them. We pass Inter-State commerce laws to destroy the barriers set up against free competition. They only accelerate the formation of vast railroad combinations, so that even the blind can see that, in a short time, instead of three or four hundred, there will be only three or four lines in the whole United States, completely annihilating competition. What will be the end? A gigantic trust, a monopoly of the whole transportation of the country under the control of one man, State socialism, ownership by the people, or something the wisest do not dream of. Who can tell? Happy he who can see even the next step to take.

The student must realize the essential justice of the law. We demand obedience to the law. How can we demand loyalty to that which is not essentially right? If the law is not justice, then the people ought to take the advice of Jack Cade's rabble, "The first thing we do let's kill the lawyers."

The law is not a trick to catch the unwary. It is not, as the farce has it, "a sort of hocus-pocus science, that smiles in your face while it picks your pocket." The

laws of a nation are its highest thought, its justest thought, its most moral thought, and for that reason, and for that alone, is entitled to our loyal devotion. Illinois lawyers have filled a brilliant place in the State and Nation. It is but calling the long roll of fame to mention them. Breeze, Douglas, Baker, Caton, Davis, Washburn, Drummond, Browning, Trumbull, Yates, Logan, and he whom nature, "Choosing sweet clay from the breast

Of the unexhausted West,

With stuff untainted shaped a hero new,

Wise, steadfast in the strength of God and true.
The kindly, earnest, brave, foreseeing man,
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,
New birth of our new soil, the first American."

Those who now occupy the places once adorned by these men, are worthy to succeed them. It was a high compliment to the profession of this State, that when President Cleveland sought for a Chief Justice of the United States, he should have found here in his own party, three gentlemen so distinguished by their legal attainments, character and faithful service to their party, and through their party to their country, that the entire bar, as well as the President, instinctively marked them as fit to succeed the most illustrious line of judges the world has ever seen. Mr. Fuller who has already added to the high reputation of the court, Judge Schofield, who was forced by his modesty and dislike of the conventionalities of social life incident to the office, to decline it, and Mr. Goudy who only missed it by being on the far side of the three score limit.

I know something of the young men preparing themselves in the law schools of this State for the profession, their earnestness, high character, ambition and studions habits, and I am sure the golden age of the Illinois bar is not in the glorious past, nor in the dull piping times of the peaceful present, but in the future, that these young men will not only preserve untarnished the golden laurels won by their elder brothers, but will add to them new victories in the cause of law and justice.

IS THE PROPERTY OF THE

Law Library,

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