Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 06.pdf/68

 Ctje #mn 3Sag. Published Monthly, at $4.00 per Annum.

Single Numbers', 50 Cents.

Communications in regard to the contents of the Magazine should be addressed to the Editor, Horace W. Fuller, 15^ Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. The Editor will be glad to receive contributions of articles of moderate length upon subjects of inter est to the profession; also anything in the way of legal antiquities or curiosities, facetia, anec dotes, etc. THE GREEN BAG. WE have received from D. B. Read, Esq., Q.C., of Toronto, the following valuable account of Canadian law associations, which we are sure will interest our readers : — Law, like literature, is the common property of all civilized people, it does not belong to any one coun try exclusively. A country that has no well defined system of laws very much resembles a ship without a compass : it is tossed about here, there and every where, and is in constant peril of being dashed against the breakers. In the United States a growth of more than a hun dred years has established a system which has not only met with the commendation of the American people, but of many foreign nations as well. Never theless it is well to look abroad and see what is being done in other lands for the promotion of legal educa tion and the foundation of those fixed principles upon which rest the stability of governments. The United States, once colonists themselves be fore gaining their independence, are not disinterested spectators of what their neighbors, the colonists of Canada, are doing in the matter of legal education. There is more democracy in Canada than people not well informed give her credit for. In no particu lar is this more conspicuous than in the schools of law, and in the way she has of bringing law home to the very doors of her student class and of her prac ticing lawyer. The legal practitioners of Upper Canada (now On tario) were in the year 1797, by act of the Provincial Parliament, empowered to form themselves into a society to be called "The Law Society of LTpper Canada, as well for the establishing of order amongst themselves, as for the purpose of securing to the province and the profession a learned and honourable body, to assist their fellow subjects as occasion might require, and to support and maintain the constitution of the province."

Immediately after the passing of this act the Law Society was organized and entered upon the perform ance of its duties. For the Society to secure to the province and the profession a learned body, as they were commissioned to. do, it was manifestly necessary that they should provide the profession with a well stored library of law books and other tabula incident to the profession of the law. This was effected by the establishment of a law library in Osgoode Hall, the seat of the courts. The library at Osgoode Hall at present contains 23,000 volumes, or about that number, and from the period of its establishment, shortly after the act of 1797, has fulfilled its purposes of affording the pro fession at large, when attending the terms of the courts (which were four in number per year under the old regime), the means of producing to the courts the authorities for the various propositions of law which were there to be argued. Since the passing of the Judicature Act in 1881, the courts, or some of them, or a judge thereof, sit daily to hear arguments; and it can well be under stood of what great value the Osgoode Hall library has been to the great body of practitioners from all over the province when attending the seat of the courts on behalf of their clients. But this was not all that was required for a thorough legal equipment. With the reform of the law procedure, enabling judges to dispense with jury trials and to take into their own hands the disposition of cases, it was indispensable that the county practi tioners outside of Toronto should have at hand the necessary books to quote from in impressing on the judicial mind at the sittings the views they wish to present. Not that judge trials have entirely usurped the jury trials, but with the establishment of the for mer came the more necessity of having well equipped county libraries for the convenience of the Bench and Bar. "Some years ago,'' says "The Canadian Law Times" of 1886, "the Benchers of the Law Society of Upper Canada made provision for the assist ance, out of the funds of the Society, of county Bar associations throughout the province in the formation of local law libraries to be maintained in the various county towns. This was done in recognition of the claims of the Bar outside of Toronto, who, while con tributing equally to the support of the large library at