Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/75

 56

sity anxious to avail themselves of the privi lege of personal contact with the leading lawyers of Boston in their offices and at the same time to acquire a thorough knowledge of the science of law with a view to its appli cation, the Trustees of the University felt that there was a public demand and necessity for the establishment of a law school as a de partment of the University, and that such an establishment would be consistent with and in furtherance of the purpose for which the University was founded. Boston University had been created by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in 1869, under a very liberal charter, and it was the intention of its founders and friends to make it one of the most progressive institutions of the country. In accordance with that inten tion the statutes of the University provide for a group of colleges, with distinctive facul ties and administrations. All departments of the University so organized as to pre suppose on the part of the student a col legiate training or its equivalent are termed schools. Almost immediately after the charter was granted, the College of Liberal Arts was opened (now located in a fine building on Somerset Street), and also the College of Music. The Massachusetts Agricultural College became the College of Agriculture. Three professional schools have been es tablished; namely, Schools of Law, Medicine, and Theology. These colleges and schools, together with the School of All Sciences (which under the statutes is for graduates only), make up the present composition of the University. Upon the establishment of the Law School, in 1872, the Hon. George S. Millard was chosen dean, and upon him fell largely the work of organization. This choice was a fortunate one. A Boston Latin School boy and a graduate of Harvard, his whole social and literary life had been passed in companionship with such men as Longfel low, Holmes, Everett, Winthrop, Bancroft, Webster, and Choate, and he had had at one

time Charles Sumner as a legal associate. His wonderful oratorical power is familiar history; at the time of his death, in 1879, Longfellow said of him : " He was abso lutely unrivalled in fluency of speech, in beauty of diction and suggestiveness of thought, and as to his power of memory." A wonderful tribute from a man of the con servative judgment and statement of Long fellow! It was natural that such a man should select for his associates none but those of the highest talent; and such was the fact. The lecturers whom he called around him embraced Francis Wharton, Judge Benjamin R. Curtis, Hon. Henry W. Paine, Judge Edmund H. Bennett, N. St. John Green, Esq, Judge Benjamin F. Thomas, Judge Dwight Foster, Hon. Charles Theodore Russell, Judge Otis P. Lord, Prof. Melville M. Bigelow, Hon. Edward L. Pierce, and- Hon. Wm. B. Lawrence. Such a dis tinguished list of lecturers had probably never before been connected with any law school. Judge Curtis never delivered any lectures. His death took him away from this new field of labor, to which he had looked forward with much pleasure. The school was opened in the building 18 Beacon Street (which at that time was also used by other departments of the University) with about sixty students, whose character at once justified the existence of the school. Among the students were many men of ma ture years and members of the bar, who had not been able to obtain that exact and syste matic knowledge of the law which they had come to realize was demanded from them, and which they were now for the first time enabled to obtain without a sacrifice of the time which they had to devote to profes sional work. The rules of the school were informal, and the students were practically at liberty to attend the exercises or remain away as they saw fit; but the lectures were of such a high grade that the attendance was always large. The lecturers seem to have appreciated the fact that the students wanted practical information; and while the theories