Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/778

 758 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

clients' causes hereafter, some of them in hell." It is likely that if there were only one-third as many legal practitioners, but these had studied deeply into the evolution and constitution of human society, and had become acquainted with the principal events, with their causes and effects in the history of the race ; and if they had also had developed in them social good-will in the place of selfish greed, society would be far better off than it is among us today. Think of a youth still in the pin-feather stage attempting to adjust the relations of men out of sorts with one another in such a complex social mechanism as our own ! He has had but four or five years of study beyond the high school, and in this time he has had to possess himself of the principles and the technique of his trade ; not to speak of all else he needs to make him a friend instead of an enemy of society. Is the law such a simple thing that it can be mastered in this brief space ? Or is it not essential that one whose func- tion it is to conserve the social organism and cause justice to prevail everywhere should study deeply into the nature and history of society, and the impulses which regulate the human heart ?

It seems scarcely necessary to say that every pettifogger is a menace to the community in which he lives ; he is a relic of a simple and crude social organization. If all those in our country who interpret and apply the laws should not rise above mere pettifoggers, we should drop back in the scale of civiliza- tion many centuries. Of course, society appreciates this in a way, and it has established regulations to protect itself against quackery and pettifoggery. But society is never aggressive in this matter; it does not act until it is evident that action is absolutely imperative. There is never any danger of people moving too rapidly in the direction of increasing the require- ments for those who would fill the offices and professions in the community.

Looking at the matter from this point of view, one cannot fail to reach the conclusion that it is most inopportune to urge the shortening of the college course at this point in our evolu- tion, and especially in our own country. Rather, every effort