Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 17.pdf/26

 A SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL OF LEGAL THOUGHT tion should be considered incomplete — that after teaching the student the tools of his trade, he should be taken beyond his par ticular field into fields related to it, to the end of broadening his mind. I am com mitted by a firm conviction, based I hope on sufficient observation, to the belief that this is especially needful in legal education — a belief shared, I am persuaded, by a larger number of the leaders in the profes sion of law than is commonly supposed. It is not enough to prepare young men for bar examinations; it is not enough to make lawyers in the ordinary sense of mak ing or helping to make men proficient in the rules of law. That, taken alone, is special and hence narrow education, how ever wide the field of law How special and narrow it is the world judges, too sharply perhaps, but still with much reason. The popular prejudice against lawyers, that they are narrow men, capable only of taking the "lawyer's view," could not arise of nothing. The lawyer in public life — the place for which he should be peculiarly fitted — is a standing illustration with the world, and too often a real disappointment. Thus, in Congress lawyers directly from practice or the bench are apt to fall short of leadership, however successful they may be on the lower level of debates on law or of giving technical aid in the drafting of bills and similar busi ness. Commanding influence there comes as a rule only to men of broad mind and training; lawyers of that description come to leader ship in public life, and everywhere. The difficulty with the rest is, not their legal education — that should be a power ful help — it is that they have not been taken out of the rut and round of the prac tice of law. There the whole brunt of energy is expended on particular cases, on details; of the wider outlook upon even the whole body of the law, how much of that is there, in the life of the average lawyer, in the practice of the legal profession? The difficulty began and was hardened in the training for the bar. Had a wider educa

tion informed the student's special knowl edge, then or afterwards — if then, it would have been likely to continue afterwards — the result must have been different, unless nature or inclination committed him to nar row ways. We must add to our teaching of the tools of the trade an outlook upon, and as far as possible a knowledge of, the world that lies just beyond the field of law. The specialist is a dangerous man, even within his own specialty, if he has not the broader knowl edge of acquaintance with fields adjacent. Men are. moreover, going more and more from the Law School into the world, instead of into the practice of law; and that is a thing much to be encouraged. The fact emphasizes the duty of the 'schools. Spe cialization is but a first step in education, a necessary step indeed, but only a first step; scientific education calls for the broaden ing of the mind. " This winter," wrote from Washington, last January, a distinguished friend of mine, who has made the most of unrivalled opportunities for observing the drift of legal affairs, and is entitled to speak on the subject, — "this winter here has con vinced me that the function of the Law School must be broadened," in the way in dicated in both the earlier and the present part of this paper, " if it is to perform its office." What the related fields are need not much detain us. I have mentioned legal history; I close with the suggestion that perhaps the most important of adjacent fields are busi ness and government on its political side. The former should at least include trans portation, interstate commerce, insurance, and banking; the latter, international law, consular affairs, colonial relations, depen dencies, responsibility for countries under protection against foreign aggression, and national expansion. It will now be proper to present a sum mary of what, according to the views ex pressed in this paper, should be taught in