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 The Editor’s Bag

543

and public documents. The movement WHERE ARE THE LAW BOOKS? HE suggestion elsewhere made in these pages—that law librarians

in the United States supply information regarding the contents of their libraries

for insertion in a report to be published by the United States Bureau of Edu

to scatter broadcast the knowledge of any such special collections may be regarded as favorable to the advance ment of legal learning, as well as in

line with latest developments in library science.

cation-—is a good one, which deserves

AN INTERNATIONAL CORPUS

to be followed. While it is the ambition of every progressive law librarian to

JURIS NEEDED

build up as complete,

HE expense of maintaining in

well-balanced

a collection as possible, every library is

creased armaments is a momentous

necessarily the outgrowth to some ex tent of special conditions, and no two

problem for the United States, and one

libraries are alike.

There are

few

even more momentous for England and

Germany.

It can hardly be doubted

librarians who, scanning their collec tions, will not ﬁnd them especially strong in some particular respects. Exceptional strength in some one feature may not seem highly signiﬁcant to the

that the necessity for prudent govern mental ﬁnance will enlist steadily grow ing public support for the international

librarian, yet the information may be

ceeded from what might be called a

found valuable in some unlooked-for

moral source, and an ethical impetus

quarter, and librarians ought certainly to co-operate heartily in any movement which seeks to tabulate such informa

was given to the movement which is likely to persist; and if it is now to be enforced by an economic impetus,

tion and make it accessible. The literature of the law differs from

as seems inevitable, the twentieth cen tury will witness notable strides, if

that of other professions, for the lawyer

not

is forced to make constant use of a far greater number of books than either

certainly toward the international arbi

arbitration movement. The earlier agi tation for international arbitration pro

toward

absolute

disarmament,

the physician or the clergyman, and the practical requirements of his pro

tration of all save the most extra ordinary disputes. Renewed interest in disarmament

fession deﬁne pretty clearly the proper

has lately been aroused by the advo

policy to be followed in gathering a

cacy of some distinguished statesmen,

large law library. There is doubtless less room for specialization in such libraries than in other libraries. Never

that, under the present conditions of

theless, where the working requirements

of the practising lawyers using the library have been met, there is always the opportunity to expand in purely scientiﬁc directions,

or to swell the

historical and critical literature; and many a library has scholarly volumes not elsewhere accessible, not to speak

of unnumbered rows of rare reports

and one is easily misled into thinking world politics, it can become a reality. Ex-President Roosevelt and Senator Root have both strongly urged the importance of concluding international

agreements respecting the size of navies. Such agitation may doubtless serve a good purpose, in that it stimulates the agitation of those other momentous

problems upon which that of disarma ment depends for its solution. It may