depends very much upon the legislatures of the different states. What we need now worse than anything else is that some states which have maintained a low standard for admission to the Bar shall be brought up to the standard proposed by these rules. We have a number of such law schools where the standard is very high. There are a number of them which require a college degree for admission to the law school. A great many-in fact, a majority of the American Law Schools have now come to the three year course. Many of them are requiring at least two years of college work as a standard for admission. Yet throughout the South there are some law schools which are on a two year basis.

Now it seems to me that we shall make no great progress along this general line until we get before the legislatures with these standard rules and have them adopted.

Therefore, I say we ought to try to arrange things at this meeting so that if we bring this matter into a conference at our next year's gathering we shall have such a conference on a day prior to the meeting of the American Bar Association. That will give us an opportunity to bring the matter before the American Bar Association and get it on record, and then we can commence this work of reformation. Because unless we have the authority of the legislatures to fix higher standards we are not going to make any great progress. Colorado is a new state, and a state of not very large population. Our two law schools, while they are rivals, have worked in harmony for a high standard. We have seen in the last two years in Denver the formation of a night law school. One would suppose that two law schools were enough for a state having the population that Colorado has. The night law school is a school without any high standard. It is useless for Dean Fleming and myself to attempt to raise our standards in our schools when a man with the commercial idea, a man who has no conception of high standards at all, can slip into a night school in Denver and get the minimum of requirements under our present statutes. Our statutory requirements are higher than those of many Western states, and our State Board of Examiners gives a real examination; yet we want the help of a more rigid statutory requirement. It is useless for the law schools of the East and of the Middle West to keep on raising their standards when the

standard established by the legislatures and by state boards of examiners doesn't come within 40 per cent of the requirement of the law schools. We must raise the statutory requirement, and then the law schools will have some basis upon which they can work; but so long as the legislature maintains the idea that any old standard is good enough, why, we are going to have this trouble. It seems to me the time has come when we must get in a position to go before the states with a definite proposition. Many of the states only require two years of law study. A determined effort ought to be made to increase the length of time.

Mr. Hepburn:

I think that Dean Manly's suggestion that the Conference next year, if held, should precede the meeting of the American Bar Association, is a good one. We have these propositions now in definite shape though not in the final shape that may be deemed the best. To send them back to the committee will simply mean that they will have to come back to us again next year. Why shouldn't we take the propositions as we have them now and next year arrange to hold a conference of two or three sessions at the opening of the meeting of the American Bar Association with a view to submitting the propositions for action then? We should aim next year to reach a final result, and then we shall be able to go with it before the legislatures. It was with that idea that I moved to send these matters upon which we cannot arrive at a final conclusion this year to a conference next year.

The motion of Mr. Hepburn was carried, and the committee was discharged from further consideration of the subject.

Secretary Hepburn:

Last year a list of all members of state boards of law examiners was prepared and it was published in a separate pamphlet, but it was not published in the proceedings of the American Bar Association. It is suggested that this year that list be revised and brought down to date as of September 1, and included in the regular volume of the proceedings of the American Bar Association.

Hollis R. Bailey:

I believe that all Bar examiners and others interested in legal education would be benefited if we had such a list as Mr. Hepburn speaks of. I move that Secretary Hepburn be instructed to obtain, if possible, the publication of an up-to-date list of the members of the principal boards of Bar examiners throughout the country and to secure its publication either in the regular volume of the American Bar Association or in one of the issues of the JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION.

The motion was seconded and carried.

Hollis R. Bailey:

There is one other motion that I would like to make, namely, that the Secretary be directed to report to the Committee on Legal Education of the American Bar Association the resolution which was adopted on Monday in regard to the matter of the personal examination for applicants for admission to the Bar, with the request to that committee that it make a report next year to the American Bar Association and endeavor to have that resolution approved.

The motion was seconded and carried.

The Chairman:

Before declaring the meeting adjourned I desire to express on my own behalf and on behalf of the Secretary, our gratification and appreciation of the very cordial support which has been met with in everything that we have tried to do to make these meetings a success; and I think I may add that we have had a very successful meeting this year.

Adjourned sine die.

ADDRESS OF CHAIRMAN.

BY

CHARLES E. SHEPARD,

OF SEATTLE, WASHINGTON.

THE EDUCATION OF THE LAWYER IN RELATION TO PUBLIC SERVICE.

This Section is now nearing its quarter-century mark and apprehension is sometimes expressed that, in no long time, there will cease to be unsettled topics for it to discuss. But education is a subject of perennial interest and multitudinous and mutable aspects. It can be viewed from many angles, and it bears on all the diverse phases and functions of life. An age such as the past half-century, replete with striking changes in science, philosophy, politics and the practical arts, inevitably presents many new problems, propounds many searching questions, as to the bearing of these changes on the content and processes of instruction to the oncoming youth. No wonder, then, that for many years the else placid pools of the universities have been troubled with floods of words on what, why and how to teach. Debate, sometimes fruitful, sometimes barren and acrimonious, always ardent, persists on one or another branch of the topic.

- Education certainly must be adapted to both the old and the new elements in the life of each age, or it will not achieve its aim. And this suggests the query whether the training of the young lawyer today fully meets his needs on the side of public and political affairs. What should be the education of the lawyer in relation to public service?

Over two centuries ago, it was laid down as the foundation of a small "collegiate school" which has since then become a great university that it was to train its sons "for service in church and state." The same general aims remain, but the ways to reach them are far different. Life has become vastly more complicated, the increase of knowledge and its materials so enormous that much selection and specialization are imperative.

The simple and uniform education of former times no longer suffices worthily to equip one for either professional or public life. It is certain that a considerable portion of the members of the bar will in their day and generation fill public offices, some of them high and important offices, that many others will take part in public discussion and political action, and that all should be fitted to do that intelligently and creditably. In democratic America to be a lawyer inevitably breeds interest in public affairs; and participation follows interest. It is a familiar fact that a very large part of the higher officers in both state and national governments are lawyers. A majority of the Presidents, very many cabinet members, diplomats, governors and administrative officers of the states, and thousands of legislators, state and federal, have been trained for the Bar. Perhaps the most striking instance that the law is neither silent nor absent in the person of its followers, even amid the arms of the War and Naval Departments, was shown by the recent President of our Association when he was Secretary of War. We cannot pause to recount in detail the many other ways, less conspicuous and direct, yet effective, in which the men of law have participated in the shaping of public opinion, the control and conduct of public action, and in service on many public boards and commissions not of professional character. When our country is served to such a degree by its lawyers, it is well to ask ourselves: What shall we teach these law students to make them fit for public office and apt for public affairs, so that the republic shall take no harm? Can we teach them anything to that end? If so, what shall it be?

Before we attempt an answer to these questions, let us consider briefly another reason than the historical one why the American youth designed for the Bar should have an education in some degree preparatory for public life, and beyond strict professional limits. The most insistent cry in the whole world today is for justice justice individual, social, political, international. Civil and political and international order begets justice; perfect order under perfect law is itself justice. Very much-though by no means all-that is wrong in our country today is within reach of cure or improvement by changes in the law-a simpler procedure, a surer and swifter criminal law, a civil law better