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Rh THE ST. LOUIS LAW SCHOOL.

ITHIN half a century the wilds of the West have become the heart of a great nation. The centre of population in the United States has passed the Alleghany Mountains and the Ohio River, and before long will have reached the Mississippi.

Fifty years ago St. Louis was scarcely more than a provincial town; to-day it is the metropolis of the Mississippi Valley. Its well-paved streets, stately stores, and substantial homes mark its progress in commercial prosperity and domestic comfort. It has libraries, an art museum, and a great music-hall, unsurpassed anywhere for its capacity and fitness for great operatic and dramatic productions.

As a city among cities, St. Louis is essentially substantial. And the Bar of St. Louis, reflecting the city's character, is made up of able, though conservative, honorable, and reliable men. It was such men who projected the St. Louis Law School, and imbued it with their personality; and no account of the school would present a correct picture of it in which was not blended with its history a description of the individuals who have given to the school the tone and character it bears.

The first movement toward the inauguration of the St. Louis Law School was made in 1860. It was fitting that the idea should have originated with the Directors of Washington University.

That institution, incorporated by the Legislature in 1853, with a perpetual charter and comprehensive powers, had already estab-