Page:The Art of Cross-Examination.djvu/177

 modern method of studying any subject, or acquiring any art, is the inductive method. This is illustrated in our law schools, where to a large extent actual cases are studied, to get at the principles of law instead of acquiring those principles solely through the a priori method of the study of text-books.

As already indicated, this method is also the only way to become a master of the art of cross-examination, and, in addition to actual personal experience, it is important to study the methods of great cross-examiners, or those whose extended experience makes them safe guides to follow.

Hence, the writer believes it would be decidedly helpful to the students of the art of cross-examination to have placed before them, in a convenient and somewhat condensed form, some good illustrations of the methods of well-known cross-examiners as exhibited in actual practice, in the cross-examination of important witnesses in famous trials.