them, upon the successful close of financial and business operations, in which no litigation is involved. A vast contingent business has been inaugurated. One lawyer received more than a million of dollars as a contingent reward; and a fee of one hundred thousand dollars is no longer regarded with astonishment. In many transactions the lawyers are half bankers and half lawyers. Of course, the inevitable effect of these employments, is to remove the lawyer far away from his technical and intellectual pursuits, to change his habits, and to cause him to forget, or neglect, the true mission of his profession.

Thousands of lawyers seek livelihood and prominence in political life, and the offices cannot be created fast enough for them to fill. Some enter politics to advertise themselves; others because they cannot gain a livelihood in any other

manner.

Political, social, and business associations are often more cultivated, by the young lawyers, than a knowledge of jurisprudence. Through the door of politics most American lawyers reach the Bench. The fact constitutes, perhaps, one of the most demoralizing influences of the age. It is known, talked of, criticised and yet tolerated, if not sanctioned, by the voters. Vehement protests are from time to time made against it, but in vain.

The people do not seem to comprehend the

seriousness of the practice, or if they do they are indifferent. In general the best equipped lawyer, in character and learning, has no more chance to become a judge, without political influences, than he has to turn water into wine. The people are the eventual sufferers, because while some good men are chosen, the majority have not the necessary accomplishments, or a proper conception of their duties. Law then becomes more or less a chance, and delays and other manifest evils supervene, for all of which the people eventually suffer. Its demoralizing influence upon the bar is indescribable. It lowers the respect which lawyers should have for the judges. It removes all incentive to study and real ambition. But beyond all of these things, it shows that the combined influence of the bar, is not strong enough, to correct an evil which destroys its own prestige and morale. Lawyers become schemers and office-seekers. They neither demand, nor care for, the approbation of their brethren of the bar. The qualities of audacity and immodesty, supplant those of learning and fitness. The man with real accomplishments, refuses to enter into a contest for the judgeship, and the race is narrowed down to those who are willing to proclaim most loudly, their own merits, and spend their time in pulling the party ropes.

If a lawyer can obtain judicial position, by

attaching himself to a political organization, why should he take the more rugged, trying, and uncertain path to professional glory by hard and laborious legal study and cultivation? If the lawyer can obtain clients by becoming a member of a social, or political club, or church, of a civic, or eleemosynary association, why should he weary his brain and mental faculties with profound or steady intellectual occupation?

If he can obtain references, receiverships, and patronage by cultivating the Judges, instead of tying himself to books, why should he not become the inseparable companion of some friendly Judge?

I am endeavoring to show what a lawyer is to-day. The difference between what he is, and what he should be, is as wide as the ocean. What he should be, is the never to be realized ideal; what he is—the always existing actual. We must study both. Keeping them in open juxtaposition is the only real means to advancement and reform.

In the selection of judges, I believe the evils could be largely reduced by holding separate elections for the Judiciary. The question of the fitness and character of each candidate could then be, independently, examined. As it is now, the elections are general, and the merits of judicial nominees are lost sight of under, what are regarded as, more important issues.

D

CHAPTER V.

THE EDUCATION OF THE LAWYER, AND THE CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH HE IS AUTHORIZED TO PRACTICE, AND HIS OATH.

To judge of the quality of our lawyers, to use a commercial phrase, it is necessary to know of what, and how, they are made; to know the course of studies they pursue before they are admitted to practice. As the lawyer is trained, so he grows. To produce lawyers who can perform their duties, they should be taught to cultivate a moral sense; the nature and object of law; the nature and duties of citizenship; the nature and duties of a legislator; but above and beyond everything else, they should be taught the real mission of the lawyer-which includes professional ethics. These fundamental requisites to the making of a full lawyer are almost entirely overlooked in all of the courses of education followed in law offices, law schools, and academies or colleges. Lawyers are made up to be mere instruments for their clients, without any

attention being paid to their duties to the State. The fact is extraordinary, nay, incredible. But it is true. One cannot blame the professors. The curriculum of legal study is based upon codification. I mean the sentiment of codification, pervades and influences all legal education. A candidate, through the ordinary course of preliminary legal study, knows nothing of moral philosophy, professional ethics, or the mission of a lawyer. Neither Paley, Austin, Savigny, Kant, Domat, Burlamaqui, Montesquieu, Pothier -nor even Blackstone-except in a fragmentary manner- or any other book or course of studies calculated to impart the above fundamental knowledge is studied as part of the curriculum, and rarely at all.1

"To the student who begins the study of English Law, without some previous knowledge of the rationale of law, in general, it naturally appears an assemblage of arbitrary and unconnected rules. But if he approached it with a well-grounded knowledge, of the general principles of jurisprudence, and with a map of a body of law distinctly impressed upon his mind, he might obtain a clear conception of it, as a system, or organic whole, with comparative ease and rapidity.” 2

1 See in this connection Chapter X, where remedies are discussed.

2

2 Austin's Lectures, III 362.