Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/73



OST of the law schools in America have not originated so much from a real public demand for them as from a desire upon the part of college authorities and their friends to add new departments to those already attached to their respective institutions. The literary atmosphere which surrounds institutions of learning very readily creates a belief that certain enlargements are needed in the sphere of instruction, but this conviction does not always reflect an educational necessity. As early as 1792 a law lectureship was created in the University of Pennsylvania and a lecturer appointed, but it was quite a number of years before any lectures were delivered by the incumbent. In 1781 a friend of Harvard devised quite a valuable piece of real estate to the college for the establishment of a professorship of law, but it was not till nearly thirty-five years afterwards that the proceeds of this devise were devoted to the specified purpose and a professorship created. In 1817 the Harvard Law School, as such, was established by the enactment by the Corporation of statutes which called for the maintenance of a distinctive school as distinguished from the lectureship which had existed for about three years. But the school was in advance of the times, and did not represent any public demand, and for more than ten years the attendance did not average more than seventeen students.

Perhaps the two most notable exceptions to the introductory statement may be found in the old law school at Litchfield, Conn., and in the school which is the subject of this article. The school at Litchfield, which was in a flourishing condition in the last century, seems to have been undertaken almost as a labor of love by its friends; and it is doubtful whether a professional school ever existed which had less of selfish motive upon the part of its officers or whose work was