to "cram" just before examination, if you will allow me the use of that highly descriptive student expression. The kind of "cramming" which consists in a systematic and rapid review of a subject with which one is already familiar is profitable, but "cramming" which consists of crowding into the mind a large. mass of new and undigested matter for the purpose of passing a memoriter examination is exceedingly bad. Any device which renders this latter practice impossible or even discourages it has at least one appreciable merit. Again, it is exceedingly difficult for all the members of a large class to hear the responses made to the questions in the oral quiz, and, missing these connectives, they miss the value of the comments and exposition by the teacher. And hence the topic is developed without uniformity of advancement on the part of the class as a whole, or symmetrical and co-ordinated knowledge on the part of the individual student. Written Quizzes. The best solution of the large class problem and at the same time the surest guaranty against undesirable cramming, which has come to my notice, is found in subjecting the entire class to regular weekly written quizzes in each topic, and making attendance upon and a fair grade in such quizzes a condition precedent to examination in the topic. We have had such system in our school a number of years, and have found it most beneficial in many ways. At the risk of being tedious, I give you some of the details. Method of Conducting. Three members from each graduating class are selected to serve as quiz mas ters for the ensuing session. The session is divided into three terms. Each term one quiz master is assigned to each class. He attends all the class exercises of that class, and has the advantage of all that takes place in the classroom, both quiz and exposition. Each week a written quiz is given in each topic at an hour not assigned to regular teaching exercises. The professor in charge of the topic prepares the questions. The quiz master meets the class at the appointed hour, writes the questions on the board, remains in the classroom, and supervises the quiz. An hour is allowed in which to answer the questions. The papers are taken in charge by the quiz master. He and the professor consult over the questions and the proper answers, sometimes grading a few papers together, at other times each grading separately a few papers and comparing results. Having in some satisfactory manner settled upon the proper answers, all the papers are then graded by the quiz master, subject to approval by the professor. A record is kept of each grade. Unexcused absence from a quiz counts zero. A short while before the examinations the quiz grades of each student in each topic. are averaged, and, unless this gives a grade of at least 80 per cent., he is not eligible for examination in the particular subject in which he has fallen below that grade. Students making the required quiz grade are admitted to examinations, and are required to make the same grade on their examination paper in order to be credited with the topic. The final grade of each student who passes is ascertained by putting together his average quiz grade and the examination grade and dividing by two. If any student falls below 80 per cent. on examination, his quiz grade, no matter how excellent, will not entitle him to pass. Ascertained Results. of that topic to the whole scheme of the We have found this plan very helpful. law, so far as then studied by the pupil. It steadies the work of the student more than any other requirement we have made. One of its almost unavoidable consequences is to cut off the "crammer" from any hope of successfully passing a subject. As his right to examination depends upon a grade of 80 per cent. running through each week of the term and based upon written exercises, it cannot be acquired by desultory and irregular work. Again, it tests every student and gives to each an opportunity to take stock of his information. The erroneous answers or parts of answers are checked, though no effort at correction is made, and the papers handed back to the student. He is thus appraised of the misconceptions into which he has fallen in time to correct them. Beside, it keeps a check so to speak, upon the work of the professor. If a number of fair students miss the same question, particularly if substantially the same error is common to many answers, the professor may well doubt the sufficiency of his teaching on that point, and is admonished to take it up again with the class. The plan is relatively inexpensive. There are always a few good students who are anxious for the benefit of the review involved in this fourth year's work, and who will act as quiz masters upon very reasonable terms. Examinations. The current tests, which we have just discussed, should be supplemented by final examinations. At the completion of each topic, an appropriate period should be provided for review, to give opportunity to systematize and co-ordinate the work, to get the relations of the several parts of the particular topic to each other and to that topic as a whole, and also the relations These reviews and examinations should come at the completion of the topic, whether that be at the end of a term, a semester, or a session. The final examinations should include questions which test the student in three respects: First, as to the accuracy of his memory; second, as to his capacity to generalize, to discover true analogy and detect false semblance of likeness; and, third, as to his capacity for practical application of abstract principles. Memory looked upon as limited to a capacity merely to store away words which have conveyed no appreciated idea to the mind in which they are lodged is valueless, but memory considered as the faculty for retaining properly digested data from which to project thought and deduce rules, and so give a basis for proper judgment, is beyond price. It is useless, however, to have data unless it is accompanied by the capacity of generalization-that is, the faculty to analyze the data and make proper comparisons and contrasts, the faculty to hold two ideas in the mind at once and truly determine their legal identity or points of resemblance on the one hand, or their diverseness or points of distinction on the other; in a word, the faculty of legal discrimination. These two faculties-to retain and to discriminate-properly developed or applied, enable the student to deal successfully with the questions of the third kind, which usually take the form of hypothetical cases and to properly decide the cases given. A decision thus arrived at is not based on the language of the opinions merely, but upon the principle which forced the court to render the opinion. An examination which fairly tests a pupil in these three respects affords am ple basis for just judgment as to his learning and proficiency. Unless it does thus test him, it cannot be safely depended on. There can, I think, be no prescribed manner of asking questions. They may be formed so as to elicit statement of abstract principles, or in form of hypothetical cases. That is matter of detail which each examiner should work out for himself, but whatever the form or forms adopted the questions should test the student in the three matters indicated. Curriculum. Recurring to the question of the curriculum and the order of topics, it will be impossible to take up in detail the different views on these subjects and the reasons supporting them. I hope, therefore, I may be pardoned for intruding upon you the conclusions at which I have arrived on the subject after a number of years of careful consideration. Elementary Law. I believe the foundation or matrix of the law consists of a limited number of general principles, ethical in their nature, and worthy of universal acceptance. These principles are the controlling rules in the lives of the great majority of the people, when each is regulating his own conduct, and are the standards which guide the people when they make authoritative rules for the government of themselves and others through political agencies. No people's conception of these principles is perfect, nor do the positive rules of law attempting to embody and set them forth represent fully even the imperfect general idea of the morally right; yet they approximate this with reasonable nearness and so stand as a fair representative of the people's sense of propriety. These underlying and repeatedly recognized principles and the general doctrines of law growing directly out of them constitute the elements of the law or elementary law. My meaning may be made clearer by an illustration. We are all familiar with the thought that running through the entire body of the law, criminal, contract, and tort, is the fact that one person is often entitled to the benefit of and liable for the injuries directly resulting from the conduct of another. In every topic with which the student can possibly come in contact this fact confronts him. Is it possible to go through the entire body. of the law, which recognizes and enforces this fact and deduce there from a few general doctrines, one or more of which must apply in every case in which benefit accrues to one person or liability attaches to him on account of conduct of another. Such an inquiry would be a search after an elementary principle of law, and, if it be prosecuted successfully and the results correctly announced, such announcement would contain a doctrine of elementary law. Suppose it be true that there are a few such doctrines, and that no case can be found which adjudges one person legally liable for the conduct of another unless one or more of these doctrines applies, would not this be interesting and profitable to one beginning legal study? It is my earnest belief, deliberately wrought out and confirmed by careful research extending through a number of years, that it is true that there are a few such doctrines. These are (1) legal identity, applying only as to the liability of the husband for the conduct of the wife; (2) substitution, applying principally, though not exclusively, between master and servant and between principal and agent; (3) nonassignability of duty, applying wherever one person owes a legal duty to another and delegates the performance of this duty to a third person; (4) co-operation, applying between all joint actors; (5) express agreement, applying whenever one person has by contract undertaken to be responsible for the conduct of another; and (6) express statutory provision applying in a few cases on the basis of public policy. No great length of time is required to give to the student of average ability a fair working conception of these different doctrines. And such a conception I have found by actual test running through a series of years with a number of classes is of very great value in the study of the law. The foregoing is one of a number of illustrations that might be given along the same line. It is said that the late Lord Russell, Chief Justice of England, in addressing an assemblage of English lawyers, stated to them that, in order to meet the active competition of the business world, an Englishman should be willing to remove a haystack in order to find a needle, but that the lawyer must go beyond this point in diligence and actually remove a haystack in order to find out whether or not a needle is hidden under it. It would seem to be no more than fair to give the lawyer some idea of what a needle is before he is set to searching for it. He might find it in the first handful of hay and not recognize it, and so cast it aside, and continue his labors to the great waste of time and energy, and in the end have no needle. May it not be that the untrained law student is justly entitled to this much consideration, and that his teacher may properly give him at the beginning of his work some general ideas at least of the law for which he is searching? Arrangement of Topics. From this point of view elementary law as I have just spoken of it should be the first topic in the course, and theoreti cally it should be completed before any other topic is taken up. In connection with the elementary law, a careful study should be made of the different evidences of the law; that is, of the different kinds of law books and the proper way to study and use them. These should be followed by criminal law, torts, contracts, and pleading. It is usual to place contracts before either criminal law or torts; but as these latter apply to and fix the rights and duties of persons upon their coming into life without the necessity of any action or assent upon the part of the person affected, while contracts deal with and regulate the voluntary creation, modification, or destruction of rights by the act of the party, it seems that contracts should be given the later place. Pleading is assigned its place among the first topics, not so much because it logically belongs there, as on account of its helpfulness in the second and third years' work in the course. It is almost impossible to thoroughly understand and get the best from a decision unless the student is somewhat familiar with the legal terms used in it, and the different steps taken in the preparation, trial, and appeal of a case. Many of these are explained in the study of pleading. After the foundation has been laid in the topics above enumerated, the order of sequence is not ordinarily so important, though as between certain subjects it is still entitled to serious consideration. Agency, partnership, corporations, is clearly a better order of study than corporations, partnership, agency. And so as to a number of other topics which will readily suggest themselves to the mind of the teacher. If he who is arranging the curriculum of a school should definitely determine that there is a proper sequence in study, and that some topics should be finished before others are begun, is it practicable to follow this order in the actual doing of the work in the classroom? In a small school with a large faculty it might be. In the average school with the average proportion between teachers and students it cannot be strictly adhered to. The ideal must give place to some extent to the practical. Still, if there be a logical sequence, great care should be given to it in the arrangement of the several topics, . and it should be followed as far as the actual conditions will permit. Teaching Procedure. Another most important part of the work of the law school is teaching procedure. I submit that this is really the true case system. If the purpose and underlying idea of that system is to throw the student back upon himself and his own resources and train him in doing exactly what he will have to do after he leaves the school, the preparation and trial of cases meets this demand as no other part of the curriculum possibly can. In the facts assigned him a pupil has a case which he must develop for himself. He must first analyze the facts and find what combinations of circumstance show a legal right, a violation of that right, and consequent damage. To do this he must necessarily apply rules or principles of law to concrete facts. He must hunt the authorities bearing upon these legal points, weigh them, and determine for himself their application and the legal results growing out of the facts as judged by the rules of law. He must prepare pleadings so as to present issues calling for the rules of law for which he contends, and ultimately must make his contentions good in the trial of the case. If there is any force in the argument that the student must be trained in the law school to do that which he is afterward to do in the law office, it finds peculiar application and force to the teaching of procedure. Selecting a case already decided and giving it to the student for study involves one of the processes through which he is to go as a lawyer. It is a most important. one, but is only one of many. The preparation and trial of cases in a moot court, or by whatever name the tribunal may be called, necessarily involves them all. Yet strange to say as a rule the schools which insist most strenuously on the case system give least attention to the adjective law and the trial of cases. I fear there must be something wrong with my logic. It is a difficult thing to organize and maintain a system of courts in a law school. To do so requires a larger faculty than many of the schools can afford. With few exceptions, there is no proper equipment either in faculty or courtroom for doing such work on a large scale. Yet the fact remains that this work can be done and done profitably, if the faculty be wisely selected and proper time and attention be given to it. Its difficulty is neither an insuperable obstacle nor an entirely adequate excuse for failure to do a reasonable amount of such work. If the world had refrained from all difficult tasks because of their hardness, it would now be in a state of savagery. All of the schools in this association have extended their courses to cover at least three years. In the division of the time thus provided have the majority of the schools given a due share to teaching procedure in its various aspects. We are all forced to recognize the action and reaction of substantive and adjective law upon each other. To take a familiar illustration, it is impossible to account for the difference in the rules of substantive common law and equity apart from the rules of procedure in the common law and chancery courts. In a very |