Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/426

Rh accompanied from day to day with explanations and more or less formal lectures.

This school claims the distinction, however, of originating, and still preserving, a plan of instruction not in general use. In 1875, Dr. Hammond, while at the head of the school, prepared and had printed in pamphlets of about a hundred pages each, synopses of his courses of lectures on Real Property and Equity, intending that the students should use these in connection with the lectures, to give them more definite statements of principles and citations of authorities for consultation than they would be likely to get in notes. The plan was found to work well, and was extended by Dr. Hammond to Torts, and perhaps other subjects; and while these topics are not now taught here in this manner, it being thought advisable in a more extended course of study to substitute text-books on such important subjects, yet the plan has been retained and used to advantage in connection with lectures on Criminal Law and Procedure, an outline of which subject, covering brief statements of the principles and references to cases and portions of text-books which can be profitably read in illustration of them, is put into the hands of the student. Less extended synopses of Elementary Law, and the Law of Corporations, and of Carriers, are used in the same way. The plan involves an oral exposition of the subject by the instructor, accompanied each day by a quiz on the matter of the previous lecture, for which the student has made preparation by a study of the points relating to that matter found in the synopsis, and extended reading of cases there referred to. These cases are quite numerous and it is not expected that each student shall read them all, but the more important of them are briefly stated in the class by students who have read them and prepared to make such statement. In this way the student gets the vivid first impressions which the lecture system is so well suited to impart, and has also the advantage of printed statements of the important rules, reduced to definite and concise form. He reads the cases cited, not merely to verify statements of the lecture or synopsis, but to give additional information as to details and the application of principles to particular classes of facts.

AUSTIN ADAMS.

In the exercises of the school quizzing is given systematic attention. It is fully recognized that ability to answer questions is not a conclusive test of legal knowledge, especially if the questions are such that they call largely for an exercise of memory; but by so framing the questions that they demand a use of the reasoning powers and test the ability to apply principles to facts, the exercise may be made valuable as a means of instruction and not merely a test of the thoroughness of the student's work.

For the further cultivation of the student's faculty of explanation and expression, he is required to undergo written examination on each subject of the course, at the time of