Syracuse University, College of Law: James B. Brooks. University of Colorado, School of Law: William H. Peace.

University of Illinois, College of Law: Oliver A. Harker. University of Iowa, College of Law: James S. Carley, E. A. Wilcox, F. M. Byrne.

University of Kansas, School of Law: James B. Green. University of Maine, School of Law: W. E. Walz. University of Michigan, Department of Law: J. H. Brewster, H. M. Bates.

University of Minnesota, College of Law: W. S. Pattee. University of Pennsylvania, Department of Law: W. D. Lewis, W. E. Mikell.

University of Wisconsin, College of Law: E. A. Gilmore, H. S. Richards, H. C. Harriott.

Washburn College, School of Law: Ernest B. Conant. Yale University, Law School: Henry Wade Rogers. Law School of George Washington University: W. R. Vance, Robert M. Hughes.

The President then delivered the annual address.

(The address follows these Minutes.)

The President: We will now listen to a paper by Professor Floyd R. Mechem, of the University of Chicago Law School.

(The paper follows these Minutes.)

The President: These papers are now open for discussion. W. S. Pattee, of Minnesota: Mr. President, I desire to make a brief statement. Owing to the fact that this room is to be occupied tomorrow night for a reception, it is proposed that the Association occupy the Senate Judiciary room, just across the hall. Therefore, I would suggest that when we adjourn tonight it be to meet in the Senate Judiciary room, tomorrow evening.

I would also state that the President of the Minnesota Bar Association has appointed a committee, consisting of C. W.

Halbert, of the College of the Law, of St. Paul, Prof. Paige, and myself, of the University Law School, to render any assistance we can to the members of this Association during the sessions. Consequently we shall be very glad to do anything we can to aid you in the performance of your duties while here.

Will you allow me also to say that it would be very gratifying to us at the University for as many of you as can to make the trip to the University campus, and especially to the law school, so that you may witness the conditions under which we are doing our work. I think it will assist us very much, as we get acquainted with one another, to know the conditions under which we are performing our respective labors.

Clarence H. Miller, of Texas: I understood you to say, Mr. President, that the Law School of the University of Texas was a member of this Association.

The President: Yes, sir.

Clarence H. Miller: I represent that school here, and I desire to say that I am inclined to agree with the President's views as to the cause of higher entrance requirements for admission to the Bar not obtaining in the Southern states. One trouble in Texas was that almost anyone could be admitted under the former methods of oral examinations. These exam

inations were held in the trial courts. The judges appointed committees of two or three lawyers to give the oral examinations, which were frequently of a most perfunctory character. That course resulted in a good many men getting into the profession who were not qualified. These men, however, having gotten in, and some of them having succeeded and become good lawyers, they naturally, to some extent, measured the fitness of others for entrance by the standard they themselves had been required to attain.

The University of Texas, which is the only law school in the state, is a young institution. It has not had, until comparatively recent years, very much influence in the profession; but now it is beginning to have an influence and we are seeing

the effect of it. The old oral examination for entrance to the Bar has been supplanted recently by a method of written examinations. The examiners now impose a pretty severe test. This, I think, shows a decided step forward.

Further, the University of Texas will in 1909 require, for the entrance of a student into its law department, at least one year's work in the academic department; that is, a man must complete, in addition to his high school education, as much as one year's work in some university equal in standing to the state institution.

I would not want the gentlemen here from different parts of the country to think that the remarks which the President quoted as having been made by some members of the Texas Bar indicated the real opinions of the lawyers of Texas as a whole. One trouble with the Texas lawyer, as with other thoughtful men, is in not knowing just what kind of literary qualifications should be required of the candidate for admission to the Bar. I have never, myself, come to any satisfactory conclusion as what is the best preliminary training for the prospective lawyer.

The stand for better education-taken by the law school and the better educated members of the profession in Texas, during the last three or four years, clearly indicates that the conditions in our state are very rapidly changing.

C. C. Cole, of Iowa: One purpose of this organization at its inception was, as I conclude, to elevate the law schools of the country and their work. The schools which united in the formation of this Association were the schools that were at that time doing the most thorough work that was being done anywhere. The idea was to get the other schools that were not doing such work to undertake for themselves to do it. It was not simply to improve ourselves and advance our own conditions, but it was to influence the whole body of schools, of which our organization has a little more than one-half, I believe, of the aggregate number of schools in the country. think no one at all conversant with the experience of the

I

schools that ever had the longer course and the higher culture and required the largest measure of preliminary requirements would want to decry the desirability of having the standard up to the highest—if you please, two years' college work proper beyond the high school, or, as is required by Harvard, the full course requisite for the degree of A. B. But we want to accomplish the greatest measure of good. that? Will it be by our elevating the standard and getting it above what we have heretofore required? Or will it be by moving gradually upward and inviting and leading forward the other schools?

How can we do

The President in his address expresses regret that we have lost the membership of Judge Ingersoll's school in Tennessee. We have been patient with Judge Ingersoll, and I think he has been a co-worker with us to get his school and those associated with him up to our standard. My idea is that we ought to maintain all the progress we have made, and we ought to declare our purpose for further advancement; but not in such a way as to cut off from us those who say that our standards are already too high. That is the thought that presents itself to my mind in a consideration of this subject. We cannot afford to retrograde; we cannot afford to let down our standards; we must constantly advance; but let us advance in moderation and in a spirit of kindness and helpfulness to other schools, and that will eventually bring them in with us.

The President's resumé of the Southern schools was a matter of much interest to me. I was very much surprised to learn of the laxity manifested in some of the schools of the South. I am willing to concede that if the outside schools will endeavor to attain a higher measure of requirement we will help to bring them up to our standards. I might refer to my own state, which has a statute requiring much less from the law student than do the law schools of the state, and we are at a disadvantage, more or less, from it. At the recent meeting of the State Bar Association, I was a member of the committee which reported on the desirability of recommending to the legislature

to advance the standards to what the law schools were maintaining. We have a state university under the control of the legislature. The legislature has prescribed the qualifications of students at the time of their application for admission to the Bar; not at the time of their commencement of the study of law; but the applicant shall have a measure of attainment substantially equivalent to a three years' course in a high school. The law schools require that at the commencement of his study he shall have that attainment; so that heretofore the law schools in that state have required the full four years' course.

I mention this for the purpose of showing that they are struggling even in Iowa to get the legislature of the state abreast of where this Association is now; and are doing it with some considerable difficulty, though we are full of hope that we shall be able to accomplish it.

The substance of what I want to say is, let us advance certainly and surely, but not too rapidly. And let us assure our brethren in the Southern schools, and there are some in the North, too, of our spirit of helpfulness, and I think in that way we shall accomplish much more than we would by making a broader gulf between them and us. I would, myself, have been quite favorable to the idea of giving the Tennessee school another year or so for it to come up to the three years' standard.

I think the remarks made by the gentleman from Texas tonight show the determination of the South to advance in this regard. Perhaps we may have stimulated them by our course. I do want to extend to these brethren the thought that we are fellow-workers in the same field with them, and that we want to accomplish the best for all of us, but that nevertheless we are ourselves determined to go on. That is the spirit I think we ought to extend to these schools.

It is true that there

is a difference between New England and Iowa and Minnesota, and some others of our western states. The New England schools may well fix a standard without prejudicing the attendance from the fields from which they naturally draw