After the keys had been presented, the main address was delivered at the University auditorium by George W. Kirchwey, Dean of the Columbia University College of Law, who spoke in part as follows:

"This is indeed an auspicious occasion, and I should have been moved to dwell upon that fact, had it not been for the grateful and felicitous and appropriate words in which the speaker in the library a few moments ago expressed the sentiments of the occasion, and especially were it not for the beautiful and eloquent words of my friend, your Dean of the College of Law. There remains nothing for me to say in order to emphasize the beauty and importance and the significance of the occasion. That you have acquired a fitting habitation for your ancient and splendid law school, long before my own law school at Columbia has secured such a habitation, is not an occasion for envy, but again for congratulation.

"I am glad that in the University of Iowa the law school occupies a distinctive place, emphasized by the erection of this appropriate and beautiful building. It is better to have a department of law than to have legal instruction; it is better to have a school of law, and better yet to have a college of law, than to have a department of law. Perhaps you will believe, before I have finished my remarks this morning, that I am disposed to exalt the influence of my profession; but I believe too much cannot be said in a growing human society of the law and the administering of the law, and that too much attention cannot be paid to the proper instruction of those in whose hands are committed the great trust of the administration of justice in a state. That the University should emphasize that high function of its power and dem

onstrate its realization of the importance of great, as well as sound, legal instruction, it seems to me the happiest inauguration, not only for the people of the University, but for the people of the

state.

"The idea of a University which I will hold before your eyes will be of an institution of a higher education, whose pivot and the center of whose life is a teaching of the law worthily conceived, because, as I look at it, the law is not the conservator of our institutions, but the creator of those institutions, in which generations yet unborn must grow and make their contributions to the well-being of humanity. The law school then has indeed a place in the University, whether its work be regarded as a University discipline of the severest sort or whether it be regarded as an opportunity to serve the state. From all points of view, the law has a place, and a great place, in the University scheme, and it may do much for the University.

"But my real theme is, not the place of the law school in the University, nor the service of the law school, properly conveyed, from what it may render to the University, but what the University may do for the law school, and through the law school for the profession to which. it ministers.

"The lawyer is not only the leader of the community, but he directs the energies of our great industries and of the state, and it is he who is little by little bringing the power of the state to bear upon those great industries. You elect lawyers, not only to the Bench to administer the laws, but to the Legislature to make the laws, and to the executive chairs to execute the laws, and if there were any other functions of the government, you would elect lawyers to fill them, too. The vocation of the lawyer is

that of administering, and in the process of administering of creating, the law of the land.

"When you say the judge is engaged in making the law, it is something like judicial heresy, and might involve one who made the statement in the presence of the court in the penalties of contempt of court. Why? I am sure I do not know. If it be indeed true that the judges do not make the law, will some one please tell me where we have gotten our enormous bulk of the law to-day? The entire law was stated by Blackstone in full in four little books, which may be found now in one single volume. Turn to the American Law Commentaries, and you find from twenty to forty volumes of encyclopedia containing the American law. Is it our Legislature, is it Parliament, is it Congress, that makes law? Less than one-tenth has been created in any manner such as that, and the other nine-tenths has been evolved in the process of judicial interpretation. It is the direct creation of the courts. My theory is that the judge neither applies the law, nor makes the law, when he decides a case; but he is just deciding the case. He is compelled to make a rule to fit the case, because there is no such rule. He really aims to shape justice. It is an inevitable tendency of the human mind whether judicial or not to follow precedents.

"In the countries that have been forewarned, having inherited a more ancient example, namely, that of Rome, there are statutory provisions against the judges following precedents, and there are statutory provisions which apply to judges who refuse to decide a case because they cannot find, the law governing the same in the Code. And that statutory spirit is, 'Go ahead and do justice,' and that spirit I am told is the spirit of France, Germany, Austria, and generally of all

continental jurisprudence. Can it be said to be the spirit of our American jurisprudence at the present time? Is not deference to precedents really the gov erning factor in the determination of controversies submitted to the court? That it has been in the past we all agree. Let us see whether it is different in the present. In the past the ossification process of the common law went on so rapidly that in a very early period of the reign of Edward it became necessary to enact by law in particular that the courts should entertain jurisdiction of a case of very similar character, even though they had no direct precedents for the case in hand, and so we have secured that great action known as the 'action on the case,' which expanded the jurisdiction of the common-law court and brought in a new day of justice into the narrow confines of the common law; and then later on, as that same process continued for a few hundred years or more, again the confines of the common law were attacked and its flexibility destroyed, and then the equity system was invoked, although the common-law lawyers struggled against that equity system that a man's sense of right should be the determining factor of a controversy.

"But, as we are aware, the equity system made good travel, and for centuries from that time, and from the year 1600 to 1900, it has flourished in the hands of a succession of able and brilliant chancellors and judges, until to-day the Court of Appeals of the state of New York, confronted with the question of restraining by injunction the publication of a beautiful young woman's portrait against her will, for an advertisement of soap or whatnot, folds its hands and says that the power of equity to extend and expand justice to reach new cases has ceased. There is no precedent for the ex

ercise of jurisdiction contended for. In other words, I do not think I speak too strongly of our equity system when I say that it has gone through that same process of ossification, the same that the common law has twice gone through, until to-day we are a people in a large measure governed by the same precedents in equity as well as in law, and no longer by the expanding sense of justice. of the intelligent judge who sits on the bench. If I am right about that, a remedy should be sought; but where shall it be sought? Shall we look for it in legislation? I said a little while ago that more than nine-tenths of our law was judge-made law, and not legislation.

"It has simply been a method of ameliorating our legal state and of keeping us up to date. Certainly it has not justified itself up to the present time, and is there any reason to believe that it will in the future justify itself? There must be some way out. The statute which creates the action on the case has failed us, equity has failed us, and the Legislature has failed us. What is the way out? Let me restate the problem: As we cannot have justice without law, the problem is to make law a more perfect instrumentality of justice, by taking into the law without undue delay the conception of private rights and social obligation which our growing civilization develops. The task of bringing this to pass is the task of the University in training the bench and bar of the future. Remember the flexibility of the common law is at real thing, notwithstanding this adherence to precedents.

"This common law of ours can be made a vital force by the inculcation of the truth, so long obscured, that the end of the court is the administration of justice, not of a system of rules; that the

law is not a senseless thing of the past, but a living thing of the present and future; that it is not made for the courts, but it is theirs to make; that a precedent has no inherent sanctity, but, as I represented a moment ago, is a signpost only, pointing the way, as it seems, to some watcher in the past to stretch into the future, and not to be followed unless it points to the promised land of justice and mercy. The history of the common law is the history of the struggle for social justice. The rules of the common law are milestones in the slow and painful march of the English and American people from individual bondage to social freedom. But this struggle is still in its infancy. This march is still only fairly begun. Lawmaking agencies have blindly and unconsciously marked the slow and painful gain made by society in its upward progress.

"It will be no small task for the University to make a great professional college and to lift it to the grave responsibilities which its powers entail. I think I have shown that it is an indispensable task, and I believe that it is the task of the University, and the University only that can achieve it. Let us be under no illusion. The law school, left to itself, but too faithfully reflects the utilitarian aims and narrow spirit of the profession which it serves; but the University has a wider and more exalted vision of its public obligations. It will make of the law school a seat of legal learning, and it will test every doctrine by the standards of justice and righteousness. To the generations of students who will be the law finders, the law makers, of the country, the University will expound the law, not as a body of esoteric doctrine, such as the scholastic mind of Coke conceived it, but as the living vesture of society, its

moral code translated into action, its words becoming flesh and dwelling among us.

"Our judges are in high places, where they can catch the dawn of the new day, the new day that is ever dawning for humanity; and woe unto them, woe unto us, if they turn their backs on that dawn and keep their eye fixed on the twilight shadows of the past."

During the afternoon a reception was held in the Law Library by the Faculty of the College of Law, and in the evening the Alumni of the College gave a banquet in the parlors of the Methodist Church.

The cost of the new law building, including furniture, was about $130,000. It is built along the same architectural lines and of the same fireproof construction as other buildings at the University of Iowa recently erected. There are three floors above the ground floor. The ground floor is a few feet below the surface, but is well lighted and ventilated, and all the space it affords will be utilized. On entering the building one is impressed with its beauty as well as its solidity. The lines are simple, but the construction is massive and dignified.

On the ground floor there is a lecture room, a janitor's room, locker room, and a students' room. The students' room is intended to be a place of relaxation. Smoking is permitted there. Already the students are planning to raise money and subscribe for some of the leading newspapers of the state to be placed on the tables of this room. On the first floor is located the Dean's offices, a lecture room, and women's room. The Dean's offices consist of one rather large and comfortable office and a somewhat smaller waiting room. These rooms, while comfortable, are simple in design and furnishings. The women's room is not large,

but shows that lady students in the college are expected, and that provision is made for their comfort. On the second floor is a large lecture room, which will seat one hundred and seventy students, the moot court room, and five offices. In addition to the regular offices, there is at smaller one adjacent to the moot court room for the clerk of the court, and another to be used as a jury room. There is a room on the first floor which has been assigned to the Marshall Law Society, which is the debating society of the Law School.

The third floor is given over entirely to the law library. The entrance to it is through double doors on the east side. Just south of the entrance is the Librarian's office, and north of it is a small room to be used as a consultation room. The remainder of the floor is in one large combination stack and reading room. This reading room is one of unusual beauty, the most characteristic thing about it being a high arched ceiling supported by two rows of massive scagliola columns. The consultation room is is a new feature in libraries, but is expected to prove a convenience. In moot court work students are paired and necessarily work together in drawing pleadings and briefing arguments. While this should be encouraged, it causes more confusion than can be tolerated in the reading room and requires a place apart. It is to meet this need that the consultation room is provided.

The furniture is, like the woodwork of the building, of oak, and stained to a shade known as early English. The moot court room is fitted up like an ordinary court room. In the lecture rooms, instead of chairs with tablet arms, there are bench-like desks and swivel chairs fastened to the floor. This method of seating lecture rooms has been tried in

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some modern law schools and found to afford the student a more comfortable way to take notes than does the old-fashioned chair with a tablet arm. stacks for the library were furnished by the Snead & Company Iron Works, and are of a standard design, consisting of

cast iron uprights and steel shelves. They are furnished by the same company and are of similar construction to those used in the Library of Congress. The wood furniture in the Library was furnished by the Library Bureau, and, while plain, is massive and substantial.

THE

HE La Salle Extension University, located in Chicago, is an educational institution chartered under the laws of Illinois for the purpose of giving instruction by extension and correspondence methods.

It occupies a field somewhat apart from that covered either by resident institutions or the usual correspondence schools. The latter generally teach elementary or technical subjects, while we endeavor to supply instruction in utilitarian courses chiefly, such as "Business Administration," "Interstate Commerce," "Domestic Science," "Literature," "Effective Expression," "Law and Procedure," etc.

We offer our services in particular to the following classes of persons:

1. Adult people, who failed to secure the education they wished while young and who desire to make up the deficiency.

2. Young men and women, desirous of entering a professional or a semiprofessional business, but who are not able to equip themselves by attending resident institutions of learning.

3. Business and professional men, who find the University's text-books, lectures,

and bureau of information suited to their needs for reference and consultation. The work of the University thus falls within the province of extension methods of teaching-which has been well termed "taking the University to the people."

The La Salle Extension University, in establishing its Department of Law, sought to place it upon a plane that would bespeak for it the friendly co-operation of the American Bench and Bar, and also the law schools and colleges of America. Likewise in planning the Course of Instruction in Law it has been the purpose to give it. that character and standing which would stamp it with the mint-mark of legal authority.

In thus promoting the cause of legal education among the general public we aim to prepare young men for admission to the bar, and to equip students with a practical knowledge of law and procedure, as distinguished merely from at theoretical training. In support of this purpose attention is called to the following Epitome of Student's Privileges in the course of instruction in Law and Procedure:

1. Instruction in the theory and prac