Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/111

 THE GREEN BAG We are too apt to forget that the law is a living thing, and therefore must forever and always change so as to adapt itself to its changing environment. When it ceases so to do it will be dead and an encumbrance of the earth. The laws of yesterday served their purpose, and they are of use to-day only so far as they are adapted to us. They do not live, and should not be expected to live, beyond their time. Here legal history finds its place. It should be learned, not to determine the law of the present because it has been the law of the past, and not as a study of binding precedents, but as a living growth, taking on this and shedding that, as it has followed the changing con ceptions of right. • The well-equipped lawyer will know legal history; and also he will know what were the influences which the law has expressed, and what are the influences which are play ing their part in the declaration of the law of the present. He will not be a narrow

man, trained in one specialty only, but a broad-minded man, with knowledge of all the subjects related to the law, such as the several forms of business, like insurance and transportation, and the several concerns of government. He will be a lawyer, and not merely a jurist, a man of affairs and not a philosopher. He will use the law of the past for its bearing; upon the law of the present; and, when of no value, like the law of tithes, he will pass it by. He will learn modern business methods and the political and social con ditions of the present, and he will study human nature. A school of law, then, adapted to the scientific study of the law, will include in its faculty not only jurists and lawyers, but also men of affairs, that is to say, business men who will speak of railway rate-making, insurance, banking, and the like. BOSTON, MASS., January, 1906.