had begun some thirty years previously and at the moment of his writing had reached a very noticeable stage. Many explanations have been given for this phenomenon. I shall not attempt to weigh or analyze all of them. For the moment, let me record a fact which increasingly has been recognized by all. Perhaps the Bar itself has been the last to take note of the circumstance. But with the spread of associations of lawyers in different states, and the growth in numbers and character of the National Bar Association, a deeper concern over the undoubted fact and a determination to meet and correct it, unceas ingly has occupied the attention of the members of what I may refer to as the organized Bar. Until quite recently, the attention of those concerned with the decline in influence of the lawyers of the land has been directed largely to the quality and extent of professional training. The law school very generally has succeeded to the casual instruction of an employer. So much progress has been made in this direction, that Lord Bryce in his most recent work, "The Modern Democracies," records his belief that "legal education is probably nowhere so thorough as in the United States." Writing at an earlier day, he said, in The American Commonwealth: "The Bar ranks high in education. Most lawyers have had a college education, and are, by the necessities of their training, persons of some mental cultivation." This is no longer true, and it is now widely recognized by those who have considered the subject, that a large, and I grieve to avow that I believe an increasing, number of young men are coming to the Bar without the requisite foundation of general education upon which to build a respectable structure of professional attainment. For upwards of seven years past, it has been my privilege to serve as a member of the Committee Appointed by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of this State in the First Judicial Department, to report upon the character and fitness of applicants for admission to the Bar. It often is well nigh impossible to form a reliable opinion of the character of many of the young men who come before that Committee. Their extreme youth and their lack of experience, renders any impression as to their character largely a matter of impression and surmise-rather than of proof. But considering their general fitness, if the Committee could act upon its uncontrolled judgment, it would exclude a far larger proportion than the rules of court allow. These rules, at present, do not require of a candidate either that he shall have graduated at a college, or that he shall have pursued a course of study fairly equivalent to a college course. All that is exacted is, that before entering upon his law clerkship or course of study in a law office, he shall have passed an examination conducted under the authority of the University of the State of New York (popularly known as the Regents) "in English, three years; mathematics, two years; science, one year; history, two years, or in their substantial equivalents as defined by the rules of the University." In a very large number of cases which have come under the observation of the Committee, it has seemed to them incredible that men presenting certificates of compliance with even these slender requirements should have got by the examiners. We deal in this jurisdiction with a very large number of applicants who come from lands in which a different language from English is spoken. In many cases, the candidate is unable to express himself orally or in writing with reasonable clearness, to say nothing of precision. They are, in a very large number of instances, abysmally ignorant of the whole background of English history and English literature, out of which American institutions have grown. At the last meeting of the American Bar Association, Senator Root, in convincing language, pointed out the greater need to-day than ever before of systematic education, of the need that every lawyer have, not only a background of the law, but "the background of the literature which explains its growth, the true character and scope of its principles, the true method and spirit of its application, which is to be found in the history of America and of England." This background is conspicuously lacking in a very large number of candidates for admission to the Bar, whom the Committee of which I am a member often is constrained under the rules, to report favorably to the Court. Possibly the evil is greater here than in some other jurisdictions. But that similar conditions prevail elsewhere, was manifested by the action taken at the Meeting of the American Bar Association in August, last. The American Bar must arouse itself to this situation, and act promptly, lest our great heritage as Stewards of the Judgment of Civilization be lost, and the sometime profession of the law degenerate into a mere vocation. The President: Gentlemen, the Forty-fifth Annual Banquet of the Association stands adjourned. |