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The Green Bag

republic which is every day approaching nearer to the theories of a pure democ racy, in an age of the initiative, of the referendum and of the recall, the state university law school cannot be merely a "lawyer incubator." It should be organized for a larger purpose than for merely training practising lawyers. Law is nothing more or less than applied political economy, applied sociology and applied social ethics. It is in a large measure the expiession of the social ethics of the people. In a country where every one is presumed to know the law, and which is governed by law and by law alone, a knowledge of legal principles is vitally necessary to an effective citizenship. What is true of England is to a greater extent true of the United States, and what was clear to the great but aristo cratic Englishman, Blackstone, should be still clearer to the more democratic American student. "To demonstrate the utility of some acquaintance with the laws of the land," says the great English writer, "let us 'only reflect a moment on the singular form and polity of that land which is governed by this system of laws; a land, perhaps the only one in the universe, in which political or civil liberty is the very end and scope of the Constitution. This liberty, right ly understood, consists in the power of doing whatever the laws permit, which is only to be affected by a general con formity of all orders and degrees to those equitable rules of action by which the meanest individual is protected from the insults and oppression of the greatest. As, therefore, every subject is interested in the preservation of the laws, it is incumbent upon every man to be ac quainted with those at least with which he is immediately concerned, lest he incur the censure as well as inconven ience of living in society without know

ing the obligations which it lays him under. And this much may suffice for persons of inferior condition, who have neither time nor capacity to enlarge their views beyond the contracted sphere in which they are appointed to move; but those on whom nature and fortune have bestowed more ability and greater leis ure cannot be so easily excused. These advantages are given them not for the benefit of themselves only, but also of the public; and yet they cannot, in any scene of life, discharge properly their duty either to the public or themselves without some degree of knowledge in the laws." What was true of the England of Blackstone is equally true of America today. Here, indeed, the duty and the necessity is infinitely greater. England was, and still to a great extent is, a country of precedent and tradition. It is a country with a homogeneous people. Above all it is a country which has been accustomed to entrust its legislation to a trained and educated aristocracy. It is a country, it is true, which has a large measure of popular suffrage, but it is still a country which is willing to yield to leadership, and where the masses respect the educated classes. There men like Gladstone and Morley can stay in political life indefinitely. Here we have our democracy enthroned. We have democratized law making, but we have not democratized legal knowledge. We are about to institute the initiative, the referendum, and the recall. We mercilessly criticize the law, and our judges, but few of us read, and still fewer are able to under stand, the decisions which we criti cize. It is only where there is law that there is liberty, and where there is law there must be lawyers. Where the sovereign power is in the people and the people are the law-givers, it is very