Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/272

 not only placed the study of law on a purely intellectual plane, but had created the first university school of law (and incidentally the oldest law school now existing) in any common-law country.

The boldness of the step was increased by its utter lack of financial backing. There were no funds with which to pay the University Professor. He was to rely for his support on the fees of his students, like a kind of legal Elijah fed by ravens, the size of his meal depending upon the number of ravens he could attract. All in all, Harvard College had never undertaken a more daring piece of educational pioneering.

At first, naturally, things were pretty crude. It is an almost comic example of the lack of “business efficiency” among the old-time administrators, that they did not perceive the importance of immediately concentrating upon their law school the efforts of both their law professors. They talked a little about it, to be sure, but without any practical effect. Stearns, in accordance with their original vote, took on his shoulders, unaided, the whole novel and laborious task of organizing this “new department at the University,” and of conducting it when organized: Parker continued calmly lecturing “in the Philosophy Chamber,” having scarcely the slightest connection with the new venture he had conceived; like those lower forms of animal life that aban-