Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/416

 diminish. Undeterred, Langdell took his next step in the development of the system, and carried the appointment of one of its earliest graduates, J. B. Ames, LL.B. 1872, as assistant professor of law, in 1873. Here truly was fresh fuel! How was a young man, just out of his pupilage, without the least practical experience, to teach the law? Dark predictions were in the air. Lawyers of high rank and unquestioned discernment said openly that the School was being ruined. “Here where law was taught as a science, the rumor spread abroad that young men were not fitted for the bar, but for membership in the Antiquarian Society.” A large and prosperous school was opened in Boston, its instructors chosen from the ablest practitioners of the day, with the avowed purpose of continuing the old, safe-and-sane textbook method. Professor Washburn, a man of great reputation and influence, universally beloved, resigned in 1876—the last survivor of the old corps.

Keenly as Langdell’s nature suffered under each new blast of discouragement, his invincible perseverance, which alone had carried him through his student days, carried him through these as well. Sensitive but undeviating as the compass-needle amid impending ship-