Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/121

 subject in the office of a practicing attorney and under his direction, and to have his progress ascertained by occasional examinations. The reading was confined almost exclusively to dissertations upon the law and text-books and there was little or no reference to particular cases. A principle was affirmed and if a case was cited it was as an elucidation of that principle. The judges were presumed to have known it and to have decided accordingly. The modern doctrine of the creation of law by the decisions of courts and the consequent importance of the study of cases had either not arisen or was only in its incipiency. In Mr. McCall's office we learned nothing of causes and I have many a time wondered what I should do if perchance in the future an actual case should ever come to me.

While I was with him, Mr. McCall gave up his home, took his family, or was taken by them, to the western part of the city and removed his offices to a two-story brick building on the east side of Fourth Street. It illustrates the relation of his students to him that they carried in baskets all of his large library and the other necessary articles to the new location. The relation to the client was also quite different from that which we now see, and instead of being a mere matter of business was in part at least friendly and paternal. One of Mr. McCall's clients, a little old man, to whom he showed marked attention, called Joseph Andrade, always with each Christmas brought him a turkey. Once I hardily went to him and said: “Mr. McCall, I want to read the works of Spinoza and DesCartes and they are not in the Mercantile Library where I have a share; could I get them from the Philadelphia Library on your share?”

He was deeply religious and probably felt that he ought not to encourage a young man in dipping into that sort of philosophy. At all events, he did not assent. I read the books, nevertheless, and added to them Locke, Hamilton, Hobbes, Hume and Spencer. Rh