Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/399

 lecturer, polished littérateur, full of years and honors, resigned. The chair founded forty years before by old Nathan Dane, whose desire for “the scientific study of the law” had been so well forgotten, now stood vacant. What distinguished jurist could worthily fill it? Curiosity battled with astonishment when it was announced that on January 6, 1870, the Corporation of the University, at the instance of President Eliot, had appointed Christopher Columbus Langdell to be Dane Professor of Law.

Who was he? Few could remember even the name. A searching of old college catalogues revealed it among the undergraduates in the sophomore class of 1848 and the junior class of 1849. Also he appeared to have been for three successive years, 1851–1854, in the senior class of the Law School, and its librarian. He had not received the A.B., but an LL.B. in 1853. He was said to have “a great deal of curious but well-nigh useless learning.’’ He was unknown to the Boston bar, though it was understood he had practised in New York City. He had held no public station. He had made few friends in Cambridge. And he had published no textbooks!

His mates in the class which entered Phillips Exeter in 1845, however, could tell of him. He was then a typical country boy, sturdy, bashful, awkward. He had