IN FEBRUARY of the present year

IN

the American Bar Association's Committee on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar addressed the following letter to the President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching:

"This communication is addressed to you by the American Bar Association's Committee on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, and has attached to it the signature of each member of the Committee.

"The Committee was greatly impressed by the investigations made a few years ago under your direction by the Carnegie Foundation into the conditions under which medical education is carried on in the United States. That the medical profession and the entire country was placed under lasting obligation to your organization because of the service that was then rendered is acknowledged by all who know the facts.

"The Committee of the Bar Associa

tion is most anxious to have a similar investigation made by the Carnegie Foundation into the conditions under which the work of legal education is carried on in this country. There is an imperative need for such an investigation, equally searching and far-reaching, with the other, and one equally frank and fearless in its statement of the facts which the investigation may reveal.

"It is to be hoped that, if your organization decides to adopt the suggestion the Committee makes, your investigation will not be confined to the law schools, but may be extended to the matter of admission to the bar in the various states of the United States, with a view of making known to the entire country the facts relating to this important subject.

"This Committee has not at its disposal either the funds or the time needed for the comprehensive investigation that is so much to be desired, and it appeals to you, therefore, to undertake the task,

and assures you of its readiness to cooperate with you so far as possible, should you conclude to comply with this request."

In accordance with this request the Carnegie Foundation has undertaken to make such a study. The work will be carried out partly under the immediate direction of a member of the staff of the Foundation, but with the assistance of various persons who may be chosen in different parts of the country to deal with matters of their own section-for example, such as the methods of admission to the bar, bar examinations, the administration of the state regulations, and other matters.

It is intended that the study shall cover, not only the examination of all the law schools of the country, of the various curriculums of study, and of their libraries and facilities for teaching; but it is the hope, also, of the Foundation to carry the study somewhat further, and to bring under consideration the relation of the legal profession to the administration of the law and to the obligations of the social régime. Some effort will be made to trace the evolution of the legal profession in the United States and its relation to legislation and administration, of the effect of corporation practice upon the profession, and of the relation of the number of lawyers to the amount of litigation and the cost of the legal process.

This study will be made from the point of view which the Foundation has occupied in education throughout, namely, that such professions as those of law and medicine are in fact quasi public, that they carry with them certain privileges, and that society has the right, therefore, to impose such conditions upon candidates for entrance to these professions as will secure to society the

most efficient body of practitioners. The Foundation has, in the studies. which it has made, committed itself to the point of view that society has the right to impose such conditions as are reasonable upon those who desire to enter these professions, and that such reasonable conditions make not only for better service and improved social conditions, but make also for a more attractive and fruitful career on the part of those who take up these quasi public professions.

One of the questions which has been much discussed in the teaching of law during the last twenty years has been the so-called case system, and the various imitations and modifications of the case system which have arisen. It is quite likely that some European legal scholar of high standing will be asked to make a study of this phase of American legal education, and to give an estimate from the standpoint of comparative teaching of the progress which has been made in adapting the case system to the practical teaching of law.

In undertaking this study the Foundation desires to make clear its desire to deal with the questions affected impartially and fairly, to approach each school of law and the study of each curriculum in the most friendly and open spirit, and it asks the co-operation of every law school and of every teacher of law, without regard to the amount of endowment or the number of students which it may have, in making the study a fruitful and constructive one for American education in the law. It is only by such co-operation that the teaching of law can be made to minister in the end to the improvement of the quality of lawyers and of the administration of the law itself.

HE question as to what rules shall

THE

govern the right of admission to the bar in the different states is one of great interest and importance, both to lawyers and to the general public.

No one to-day denies the necessity of maintaining a high standard of admission, or fails to see the evils which result to the community from a multitude of incompetent lawyers.

As to how the standard shall be maintained, however, there is no such unanimity of opinion. While all shades of opinions on this question are to be found, the whole controversy to-day, in this country, in reality resolves itself into a single issue: Shall admission to the bar be restricted and regulated by monopoly or by competition?

In connection with this main question there is the auxiliary one: Shall restrictions placed upon admission to the bar be extended so as to restrict the right to study law?

It is not the purpose of this article. to indulge in any adverse criticisms; but, nevertheless, all those who truly favor the raising of the standards both of the legal profession and of American citizenship cannot help regretting the attitude which has been taken by some of the leaders in legal education in this country. It is unfortunate that the personal equation should have become so prominent, and that a question of such vital and widespread importance should have been so largely considered and discussed from the standpoint of its effect upon certain schools.

The idea of a monopoly, either complete or partial, is not one which will find much favor to-day in the minds of the American public. Of all monopolies, perhaps the most indefensible, and the one most disastrous in its results, is the intellectual one. It is only necessary to turn to history to note the intellectual stagnation caused by any scientific, religious, or educational monopoly.

An attempt to restrict or regulate admission to the bar by limiting the number of schools permitted to teach law, or by providing that instruction in law shall be given only by certain methods, or at certain hours of the day, or to certain classes of students, will not raise the standard either of law schools or of the members of the bar. The restrictions of this kind, which above all others should be avoided, are those which would tend to make it impossible, or at least unfairly difficult, for any one to obtain admission to the bar on account of his lack of financial re

sources.

It must also be remembered that it is very far from being the sole scope or duty of the law schools to prepare men for admission to the bar. An ever-increasing number of students are to-day seeking a knowledge of the law for use in business, in public life, or merely as a part of a liberal education. While admission to the bar should be strictly regulated the mere study of the law should be left entirely free and unfettered. As long as it is a maxim of our law that "ignorance of the law excuses

no one," it is the height of absurdity and injustice to prohibit any one from studying this science.

Nor is there much merit in the argument that those who desire to study law without any idea of practicing should study the law apart from those who study it as their life profession. The greatest defect in the education of law students, who come from the leading law schools of the country, is their lack of practical knowledge both of the law and of the business world, and the opportunity of meeting in their classes a number of more mature and more practical, though less educated, students would be beneficial rather than harmful to the future lawyer.

The elimination of the plan of restricting the teaching of the law as a practical method of raising the standard of the bar raises the question as to what plan can be adopted for the accomplishment of this end. The answer is a plan which, although a radical innovation in America, has been adopted to some extent in other countries, namely, that of competitive examinations for admission to the bar.

At present competition is simply postponed until after the candidate is admitted to practice. It then operates at the expense of the public. The inefficient lawyer struggles to hold his own in competition with others, and either falls by the wayside or develops into the pettifogger or shyster.

No one can deny the evil effects of too great a number of lawyers, both upon the lawyers themselves and upon. the general public; nor can any one question the right of any state to limit the number of licenses which shall be granted to lawyers. The authority to practice law is in no sense an inherent right, but is a special privilege granted

to each lawyer by the state; and the public welfare should be the supreme test as to the number of applicants to whom such authority should be granted. An attorney being an officer of the court, and standing in the position of a public quasi official, applicants for such positions may with propriety be compelled to reach this position by the same method required by candidates for positions in the civil service.

It will undoubtedly be urged by many that bar examinations have not proved very accurate tests as to the fitness of candidates for admission to the bar. This has unfortunately been true to some extent in the past; but the trouble has been with the kind of examinations given, and not with possibility of proper examinations determining such ability.

The bar examinations given in nearly all of the states to-day are extremely defective, both as to the theory and philosophy of the law and as to the practice of the law. A bar examination can be prepared which would serve as a satisfactory test along both lines of the applicant's qualifications for admission to the bar. Such an examination should start with an examination upon legal history and the general theory of jurisprudence, and end with work in actually drawing pleading, deeds, and other legal papers, and in explaining the actual steps of conducting a suit at law. A proper competitive examination for admission to the bar would reduce the necessity for red tape as to the admission of candidates to take examinations to a minimum.

There are many details in such a plan of bar examinations which it would be necessary to work out. In particular, the question as to how many new lawyers should be admitted each year in