Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/315

 Well might the old professor raise his hands to heaven, for stranger things yet were to happen. It is said that he almost fainted when the first blue-books made their unwelcome appearance, and he realized that regular written examinations, with all the labor they imply, were to be required for a degree. The old eighteen-months term of residence became two years.

Changes of this sort paved the way for the next great change. The old staff of preceptors, oppressed with new burdens and trammelled by unaccustomed supervision, felt that their places should be taken by younger men, more conversant with modern conditions. Within a few years of each other, they all quietly and gracefully resigned, and a new and enlarged corps of teachers took up their work.

Of this remarkable group of instructors, and the stupendous revolution they wrought in the teaching of the law, of the epoch-making publication of “Cases on Contracts,” of the extension of the term to three years, of the enormous increase in attendance, of the building of Austin and Langdell Halls, and of the phoenix-like reincarnation of old Nathan Dane’s idea, “the systematic and scientific study of the Law,” I do not propose here to speak. The spirit of Isaac Parker looks down to-day upon the school “devoted to study only,’’ and beholds that somewhat shaky educational experiment now be-