addressed a series of questions to thirtyfive or forty of the leading law schools of the country-all of them North or West, and all but two requiring a threeyear course for graduation—and have received answers from twenty-eight. The answers given are not susceptible of accurate tabulation, but are very nearly so. The questions asked and the summary of the answers given are as follows:

1. Do you allow credit for work successfully completed in other Law Schools, and, if so, what is the test for an accredited school?

Ans. Twenty allow such credit; eight do not. Of the twenty allowing credit the test applied by seven is membership in the Association of American Law Schools, seven make special investigations, and the remaining six either do not answer the question, or apply no special test.

2. What limit, if any, is placed on the number of subjects for which credit is allowed to an applicant for a degree?

Ans. Twelve credit subjects of first two years of their course, three subjects of first year only, one subjects of first year and a half, two fix no limit, and two are not classified.

3. What is the minimum of residence required of an applicant for a degree, and what the minimum of work required during that time?

Ans. Twenty require a minimum residence of one year, seven require a minimum of two years, and one fixes no limit. The amount of work varies considerably, but the general range is from ten to fifteen hours of lectures per week.

4. Are there any subjects which you refuse to credit? If so, what?

Ans. The answers to this question have been too general to admit of exact classification, but generally credit is refused for the subjects taught during the

period of required residence-one year or two, as the case may be. One school refuses credit for International Law, Admiralty, and Administrative Law.

5. What, if any, precautions do you take to protect your degree against credits which subsequent tests demonstrate should not have been allowed?

Ans. Review or degree examinations on the whole course are required by five. The question is said to be properly and carefully considered and finally determined when the advance standing is accorded by two, the credits would be withdrawn by three, and ten have either had no occasion to consider the question or have not determined upon any precautions.

A review of the answers discloses the fact that all allow "advanced standing" —that is, diminish the period of residence which would be otherwise required; more than two-thirds allow credit for work successfully completed at other law schools; and there is a lack of harmony as to the tests of an accredited school and as to precautions taken to protect the degree against ill-advised credits.

A degree represents the minimum standard of proficiency required by the school conferring it, and hence that school is interested to see that no one obtains it who does not measure up to that standard. This fact it cannot know with certainty if any portion of its work is intrusted to others; but it may have. assurances such as we act upon in all of the other business affairs of life sufficient to justify it in the belief that courses given by a sister institution are at least equal to its own. If this be the fact, then, from the mere standpoint of protecting the degree, there can be no impropriety in allowing the credit. The difficulty lies in the nature of the "assurances" required to "justify the be

lief." Upon this point, outside of those schools which apply the test of membership in the Association of American Law Schools, no fixed standard has been erected, and each school decides for itself upon such evidence as it deems sufficient, in the exercise of its independent judgment. Probably no other or better standard can be fixed.

Whether credits should be allowed at all or not is a subject upon which much may be said on both sides. A student who has taken a part of his course in one school may be unable to complete his course on account of his health, or the change of residence of his parents, or because he wishes a special course in the local law of the state in which he intends to locate, or because he wishes to take a particular course under some professor especially distinguished along that line, or for other reasons equally as good. In such cases it would seem that credits should be transferred under such restrictions as will properly safeguard the degree of the school conferring it; but the system of credits should not be made attractive for the purpose of increasing numbers, or inducing changes. Whatever may be the views of others as to the propriety of allowing credits for work done in other schools, twenty out of the twenty-eight law schools above mentioned have answered in a practical way that such credits should be allowed.

We regret that one other question was not asked, so that we might have had the light of experience on the subject: What has been the result of your credit system? Has it worked well or ill? Unanimity on this subject should determine its future status; but we have not the answers. In the absence of information from others, we may give as the result of two years' experience at Washington and Lee University that the danger to the University has been more imaginary than real, and the benefit to the student more illusory than substantial. In the class of 1906, some six or eight students were allowed conditional credits for work done elsewhere; but only one graduated. He was accredited to the Yale Law School. In the class of 1907, eight were allowed credits; but only one graduated. He was accredited in part to the Detroit College of Law and in part to the University of Michigan. All of the others who applied for graduation failed on subjects not credited, except one, who

withdrew on account of ill health. It is

proper to say, however, that of those credited in 1907 only four applied for graduation. The others are in the graduating class of 1908.

In conclusion, we beg to extend our thanks to the Deans of the several law schools for their prompt answers to our inquiries.

write a good book is one of the surest roads to immortality in the law. Certainly it is to his book on Tenures that Sir Thomas Littleton owes his fame. Had he never written it he would be remembered only as the progenitor of a distinguished family-if he were remembered at all.

We learn from the preface of Coke's first Institute that Littleton came "of an ancient and fair descended family," his father being Thomas Westcote, of Westcote near Barnstaple, according to Foss; his mother, Elizabeth de Littleton, whose family took their name from Littleton, or Lyttleton, in Worcestershire. Being heiress to great estates, and desiring to perpetuate the name of her family, his mother stipulated before. marriage that her child, or children, who should inherit her estates, should take her name, and so Thomas, the eldest of a family of eight children-four sons and four daughters-became Thomas Littleton, or Lyttleton, and bore the Littleton arms-argent, a chevron between three escallop shells, sable.

He was born at the family seat at Frankley, in Worcestershire. The date of his birth is given in the "Dictionary of National Biography" as 1402, on what evidence does not appear. Where he received his early education we know not, but we have Coke's authority that he became a member of the Inner Temple, that he was appointed "reader," and that the subject of his lecture was the Statute of Westminster II., De Donis

*From "Famous Lawyers," in Law Notes (English).

Conditionalibus. The reader was the most important man of the Inn next after the Treasurer, and he had the right to hang his escutcheon or coat of arms on the wall of the hall of the Inn. That Littleton was reader is borne out by the fact that his escutcheon is the earliest there.

In the year 1445 he must have been an advocate of repute, for it appears from the Paston Letters that a suitor petitioned the Lord Chancellor to assign him as counsel in certain proceedings against the widow of Judge Paston, whom none of the "men of the law" were willing to oppose. From this it would seem, says Foss, that his practice was at that time principally in the Court of Chancery, which may perhaps account for the infrequent occurrence of his name in the Year Books, in which chancery cases are seldom recorded.

In 1450 he was Recorder of Coventry, and, representing the mayor and corporation, he presented Henry VI, when he visited the city on the 21st of September, with a tun of wine and twenty fat oxen, for which, and for his "good rule and demene," he received. the royal thanks.

It is also recorded that in the 30th year of Henry VI (1452), one Sir William Trussell granted him the manor of Sheriff Hales, in Staffordshire, for his life, "pro bono et notabili consilio."

He was made a serjeant at law on the 2d of July, 1453, and about the same time was appointed steward, or judge, of the Court of the Palace, or Marshalsea of the King's Household. Two years later, on the 13th of May, 1455,

he received a patent as king's serjeant, in which capacity he went the northern circuit as judge of assize.

In the first Parliament of Edward IV, which was summoned in 1461, he was named as an arbitrator in a difference between the Bishop of Winchester and his tenants, and it appears from the Paston Letters that two years later he was in personal attendance on the King with the two Chief Justices on one of the royal progresses.

On the 17th of April, 1466, he was appointed a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and continued to hold the office for the remainder of his life, notwithstanding the civil commotions of the time, enjoying the confidence, it would seem, of both Edward IV and Henry VI as they alternately occupied, or were driven from, the throne.

In the fifteenth year of Edward IV (1475) he was, amongst others, created a knight of the Order of the Bath.

He married Joan, one of the daughters and co-heirs of Sir William Burley, of Bromscroft Castle, Shropshire, and widow of Sir Philip Chetwynd, of Ingestre, in Staffordshire, whose great possessions went to swell his already ample patrimony. By her he had two daughters, who died unmarried, and three sons, William, Richard and Thomas.

It was for the instruction of his second son, himself an eminent lawyer in the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII, that he wrote his famous book, and to him it is addressed. It was written in law-French, but Coke made or adopted an English translation, and most of the modern editions are in that form. Coke thought that Littleton composed it after the fourteenth year of Edward IV (1474-1475), and that he left it unfinished, since the table of contents of an early printed edition contained the titles "Tenant by Elegit" and

"Statute Merchant and Staple" after the title "Warranty," which ends the book. This appears doubtful, however, if the "Epilogue" appended to some of the editions is genuine.

Coke also thought that the book was never printed during the author's lifetime; but this, too, is a matter of controversy. It is certain that it was one of the first books printed in England.

It is evident that it very soon became a work of great repute among lawyers. Coke, whose commentary on it greatly increased its fame, had the most extravagant admiration for it. He calls it "the most perfect and absolute work that ever was written in any humane science."

It consists of three books-the first dealing with the various estates in land. known to the English law, the second with tenures and their incidents, and the third with miscellaneous matters. There is not much skill shown in the arrangement or analysis of the subject, but it exhibits a complete grasp of the law, and its style is a model of lucidity and simplicity.

Mr. J. M. Rigg, in the "Dictionary of National Biography," says that probably no legal treatise ever combined so much of the substance with so little of the show of learning, or so happily avoided pedantic formalism without forfeiting precision of statement.

It is scarcely necessary to remind the law student that, aided by Coke's commentary, it is the source of a great part of our law of real property. For Littleton's Tenures is a book of authority -what he says is the law.

Yet the author was modest enough himself about his performance. "And know, my son," he writes in his Epilogue, "that I would not have thee believe that all which I have said in these books is law, for I will not presume to

take this upon me. But of those things that are not law inquire and learn of my wise masters learned in the law. Notwithstanding albeit that certain things which are moved and specified in the said books are not altogether law, yet such thing shall make thee more apt and able to understand, and apprehend the arguments and reasons of the law, etc. For by arguments and reasons in the law a man more sooner shall come to the certainty and knowledge of the law."

Littleton died where he was born, at Frankley, on the 23d of August, 1481, and was buried in Worcester Cathedral.

His will is dated the day previous. To quote from Coke, "he made his three. sons, a parson, a vicar, and a servant of his executors, and constituted supervisor thereof his true and faithful friend

John Alcocke, Doctor of Law of the famous University of Cambridge, then Bishop of Worcester (a man of singular piety, devotion, charity, temperance, and holiness of life) who, amongst other of his charitable works, founded Jesus College in Cambridge, a fit and fast friend to our honourable and virtuous judge."

No less than three peerages have been conferred on his descendants, namely, those of Lyttleton of Frankley (now united with that of Cobham), granted to a descendant of his eldest son, William; Hatherton, granted to a descendant of his second son, Richard; and Lyttleton of Munslow, now extinct, granted to a descendant of his third son, Thomas; while a fourth, that of Lilford, is held by a descendant through the female line.

There is something especially delightful in the dramatic effect of a story when the youthful minister or the curled dandy who may happen to be the hero suddenly meets and conquers the bully on his own ground. There is a sort of poetic justice in it, which has enough novelty to be surprising and enough equity to be satisfying.

Sometimes a judge who is not too much weighed down by the dignities and conventions of his office finds an opportunity to administer justice along this line. A case was reported some time ago in which a "Christian Scientist," who had been arraigned for practicing without a license, defended himself by quoting Scripture as his authority for healing. The learned judge proved himself a Daniel come to judgment by pushing aside the statutes for such cases made and provided, and overwhelming the defendant with well-chosen texts from Holy Writ, which served the purpose of supporting the judg ment of the court equally well.

In Charles J. Darling's clever book, "Scintillæ Juris," we find the following account of a judgment delivered by a learned judge in Thimblerig v. Hookey:

This action was brought to recover damages for having been called a villain-and the plaintiff alleges, somewhat boldly as I think, that on that account his friends have deserted him. But I hope I may be allowed to say that, in my humble opinion, such of his acquaintances as I had the advantage of seeing, when they came as witnesses at the trial, would rather cease to associate with the plaintiff if they thought he did not deserve the title the defendant had bestowed upon him than if they believed he did; and besides, I think I speak for myself-İ think it can be no loss to any man, but rather a distinct gain, to be deprived of the consort of such friends as the plaintiff appears to have been-ahem!-blessed with.

As to the term villain or villein-for it nowhere is shown which spelling the defendant intended-let us consider whether, as applied to the plaintiff, it is a defamatory word or not.

A villein, if I have not forgotten my Oxford learning, was one who did odd jobs-and so does the plaintiff, very. A villein carried food to the pigs-but the plaintiff is a tout, and supplies sporting intelligence. The villein was dependent on a lord, and was his 'man'-the plaintiff hangs on to several noble peers, yet I hardly call him a man-'Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto;' but as to what I think of the plaintiff-well, I say nothing.

But, to put a perhaps somewhat extravagant hypothesis, even if the plaintiff be not a villain, I cannot see evidence that the defendant called