The first day of the procession was wholly taken up yesterday by the exercises of the Law School. After registering during the morning hours the graduates assembled toward noon to hold a business meeting.

The large lecture-room in Austin Hall was crowded with Law School graduates of all dates, as far back as the earliest years of the century, if one might judge from the many venerable heads that were the land marks of the assembled throng. Faces of young and old alike looked happy and pleased to be again re-united at the centre whence they all derived that knowledge which enabled them to enter upon their career.

Mr. Geo. A. Shattuck, chairman, called the meeting to order at 12.15.

The first business was an amendment of Article 3 in the Constitution, adopted Sept. 23, 1886, providing for admission of present members of Law School on their graduation and for the election of honorary members.

Following is the constitution:

I. The name of this Association shall be the "Harvard Law School Association."

II. The objects of this Association shall be to advance the cause of legal education, to promote the interests and increase the usefulness of the Harvard Law School, and to promote mutual acquaintance and good-fellowship among all members of the Association.

III. 1. All graduates and former members of the Harvard Law School may become members of this Association.

2. Every member shall pay an initiation fee of one dollar, and an annual fee thereafter of one dollar.

IV. The officers of the Association shall be a President, not less than ten, nor more than twenty, Vice-Presidents, a Secretary, a Treasurer, and a Council of twelve members. The president, secretary and treasurer shall be ex-officio members of the council.

V. 1. The president, vice-presidents, secretary, and treasurer shall be elected for the term of one year.

2. The council shall be elected in classes as follows: At the first meeting of the Association, three members of the council shall be elected for the term of four years, three members for the term of three years, three members for the term of two years, and three members for the term of one year; and hereafter, at the annual meeting of the Association in each year, three members shall be elected for the full term of four years, to fill the places of those whose term of office shall then have expired.

3. Vacancies occurring in any of the four classes of the council before the expiration of their respective terms of office shall be filled at the annual meeting next following the occurrence of such vacancies.

4. All officers of the Association shall hold their respective offices during the regular term thereof, and until their successors shall be elected and qualified.

VI. The annual meeting of the Association shall be held at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the Tuesday preceding the Annual Commencement of Harvard College; provided, however, that the council shall have the power to appoint in any year a different time and place for the annual meeting if deemed expedient.

VII. The president or the council shall have the power to call a special meeting of the Association at any time, provided that at least two weeks' previous notice in writing be given to all members of the Association.

VIII. 1. The executive power of the Association shall be vested in the council, subject to the control and direction of the Association.

2. The council shall have the power to elect from its own members an Executive Committee of not less than three members, to whom may be delegated such powers as the council shall deem expedient.

3. The council shall elect every year from its own members a "Committee on the Harvard Law School," and may elect such other committees from its own members or the Association at large, as it shall from time to time deem expedient in carrying out the objects of the Association.

4. The council shall have the power to appoint from time to time one or more Corresponding Secretaries in the different cities or towns of the United States and the Dominion of Canada. It shall be the duty and office of such corresponding secretaries to promote in their respective localities the objects and interests of the Association.

5. The council shall have the power to fix the number of members of the Association necessary to constitute a quorum for the transaction of any and all business save that of amending the Constitution, and to fix also the number of their own members necessary to constitute a quorum of the council.

IX. The secretary, treasurer, the council, and the committee on the Harvard Law School, shall make and submit to the Association, at its annual meeting in each year, reports in writing of their respective doings for the preceding year.

X. This Constitution may be amended by a majority vote of all the members of the Association present at the annual meeting, or at any special meeting called for that purpose.

Mr. Darwin E. Ware reported the names recommended by the Committee on Nominations, and the following officers were accordingly elected:

President, Hon. James C. Carter, of New York.

Vice-Presidents - Hon. Andrew Allison, of Tennessee; Hon. Charles S. Bradley, of Rhode Island; Hon. James B. Eustis, of Louisiana: Hon. William M. Evarts, of New York; Hon. Manning F. Force, of Ohio; Hon. Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio; Hon. Hugo McDonald Henry, of Nova Scotia;

Hon. Ogden Hoffman, of California; Hon. A. R. Lawton, of Georgia; Hon. Robert T. Lincoln, of Illinois; Hon, John Lowell of Massachusetts; Hon. Arthur W. Machen, of Maryland; Hon. Marcus Morton, of Massachusetts; Hon. John H. Overall, of Missouri; Hon. John A. Peters, of Maine; Hon. William Preston, of Kentucky; Hon. Alfred Russell of Michigan; Hon. Henry C. Semple, of Alabama; Hon. Jeremiah Smith, of New Hampshire; Hon. George B. Young, of Minnesota.

Council, for four years - Hon. James M. Barker, of Pittsfield; John L. Thorndike, of Boston; William Schofield, of Cambridge; for three years: Hon. Patrick A. Collins, of Boston; Frederick P. Fish, of Cambridge; Theodore H. Tyndale, of Boston; for two years: Hon. F. P. Goulding, of Boston; A. Lawrence Lowell, of Boston; Samuel B. Clarke, of New York; for one year: Hon. A. L. Huntington, of Salem; Fred. C. S. Bartlett, of New Bedford; Sherman Hoar, of Waltham.

Treasurer - Winthrop H. Wade, of Boston.

Secretary - Louis D. Brandeis, of Boston.

The meeting adjourned at 12.35 p.m.

Shortly after one o'clock the procession formed and marched past the gymnasium, which shone forth brightly in the autumn sun. Headed by a brass band the line marched in double file toward Sanders Theatre. First came Mr. James C. Carter, president of the Law School Association, accompanied by Mr. Reed and they were followed by Mr. Holmes and Mr. Pickering, President Eliot and Dr. Taylor, of Cambridge, Eng., Judges of the Supreme Court and professors of the law school. When Mr. G. E. Sewell, who graduated in 1818, entered the ranks, three cheers were given by all present. Then followed all the classes of the law school, in order of their graduation, including the present students. The platform, floor, and first few rows of the first balcony were occupied by members of the association. The rest of the house was well filled with an attentive audience. Mr. Carter spoke some very eloquent words, introducing the speaker, Honorable Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. After thanking the audience for their warm reception Mr. Carter said in substance:

"I hail the occasion thus inaugurated and thus commenced, as affording opportunity for better publishing the advantages of the Harvard Law school. It is gratifying to see such large numbers taking an active interest in the formation of the association. The Harvard Law school occupies no second place among the institutions devoted to legal education." He then spoke of the great improvements brought about in the instruction by Mr. Langdell. Formerly, too much theoretical knowledge disqualified the men for immediate practical work. Now it is quite the contrary. In his experience, Mr. Carter has found the recent Harvard graduates possessed of more accurate working knowledge than any other young men just entering the profess.

"What is the law? It is not found in the code given on Mt. Sinai, nor in the Gospel, not in Socrates, nor yet in Plato. It is alone found in the adjudications which its administrators are from time to time called upon to give. Law is no royal road, no primrose path. But I keep you too long from hearing the distinguished gentleman, whose name alone is enough to attract throngs hither. I introduce Mr. Justice Holmes of the Supreme Court. Amid deafening applause Mr. Holmes arose and spoke as follows:

ORATION.It is not wonderful that the graduates of the Law School of Harvard College should wish to keep alive their connection with it. About three quarters of a century ago it began with a chief justice of the supreme court of Massachusetts for its Royall professor. A little later, one of the most illustrious judges who ever sat on the United States supreme bench - Mr. Justice Story - accepted a professorship in it created for him by Nathan Dane. And from that time to this it has had the services of great and famous lawyers, it has been the source of a large part of the most important legal literature which the country has produced, it has furnished a world-renowned model in its modes of instruction, and it has had among its students future chief justices and justices, and leaders of State bars and of the national bar too numerous for me to thrill you with the mention of their names.

It has not taught great lawyers only. Many who have won fame in other fields began their studies here. Sumner and Phillips were among the bachelors of 1834. The orator whom we shall hear in a day or two appears in the list of 1840 alongside of William Story and the chief justice of this State, and one of the associate justices, who is himself not less known as a soldier and as an orator than he is as a judge. Perhaps without revealing family secrets I may whisper that next Monday's poet also tasted our masculine diet before seeking more easily digested, if not more nutritious, food elsewhere. Enough. Of course we are proud of the Harvard Law School. Of course we love every limb of Harvard College. Of course we rejoice to manifest our brotherhood by the symbol of this association.

I will say no more of the reasons for our coming together. But by your leave I will say a few words about the use and meaning of law schools, especially of our law school, and about its methods of instruction, as they appear to one who has had some occasion to consider them.

A law school does not undertake to teach success. That combination of tact and will which gives a man immediate prominence among his fellows comes from nature, not from instruction; and if it can be helped at all by advice such advice is not offered here. It might be expected that I should say by way of natural antithesis that what a law school does undertake to teach is law. But I am not ready to say even that without a qualification. It seems to me that nearly all the education which men can get from others is moral, not intellectual. The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts but learning how to make facts live. Culture, in the sense of fruitless knowledge, I, for one, abhor. The mark of a master is that facts, which before lay scattered in an inorganic mass, when he shoots through them the magnetic current of his thought, leap into an organic order and live and bear fruit. But you cannot make a master by teaching. He makes himself by aid of his natural gifts.

Education, other than self-education, lies mainly in the shaping of men's interests and aims. If you convince a man that another way of looking at things is more profound, another form of pleasure more subtle than that to which he has been accustomed - if you make him really see it - the very nature of man is such that he will desire the profounder thought and the subtler joy. So I say the business of a law school is not sufficiently described when you merely say that it is to teach law, or to make lawyers. It is to teach law in the grand manner, and to make great lawyers.

Our country needs such teaching very much. I think that we should all agree that the passion for equality has passed far beyond the political or even the social sphere. We are not only unwilling to admit that any class or society is better than that in which we move, but our customary attitude towards every one in authority of any kind is that he is only the lucky recipient of honor or salary above the average which any average man might as well receive as he. When the effervescence of democratic negation extends its workings beyond the abolition of external distinctions of rank to spiritual things, when the passion for equality is not content with founding social intercourse upon universal human sympathy and a community of interests in which all may share, but attacks the lines of nature which establish orders and degrees among the souls of men, they are not only wrong, but ignobly wrong. Modesty and reverence are no less virtues of freemen than the democratic feeling which will submit neither to arrogance nor servility.

To inculcate those virtues, to correct the ignoble excess of a noble feeling to which I have referred, I know of no teachers so powerful and persuasive as the little army of specialists. They carry no banners. They beat no drums. But where they are, men learn that bustle and push are not the equals of quiet genius and serene mastery. They compel others who need their help or who are enlightened by their teaching, to obedience and respect. They set the example themselves. For they furnish in the intellectual world a perfect type of the union of democracy with discipline. They bow to no one who seeks to impose his authority by foreign aid. They hold that science like courage is never beyond the necessity of proof, but must always be ready to prove itself against all challengers. But to one who has shown himself a master they pay the proud reverence of men who know what valiant combat means and who reserve the right of combat against their leader even, if he should seem to waver in the service of truth, their only queen.

In the army of which I speak the lawyers are not the least important corps. For all lawyers are specialists. Not in the narrow sense in which we sometimes use the word in the profession, of persons who confine themselves to a particular branch of practice, such as conveyancing or patents, but specialists who have taken all law to be their province; specialists because they have undertaken to master a special branch of human knowledge - a branch, I may add, which is more immediately connected with all the highest interests of man than any other which deals with practical affairs.

Lawyers, too, were among the first specialists to be needed and to appear in America. And I believe it would be hard to exaggerate the goodness of their influence in favor of sane and orderly thinking. But lawyers feel the spirit of the times like other people. They like others are forever trying to discover cheap and agreeable substitutes for real things. I fear that the bar has done its full share to exalt that most hateful of American words and ideals - smartness - as against dignity of moral feeling and profundity of knowledge. It is from within the bar, not from outside, that I have heard the new gospel that learning is out of date and that the man for the times is no longer the thinker and the scholar, but the smart man unencumbered with other artillery than the latest edition of the digest and the latest revision of the statutes.

The aim of a law school should be, the aim of the Harvard Law School has been, not to make men smart, but to make them wise in their calling - to start them on a road which will lead them to the abode of the masters. A law school should be at once the workshop and the nursery of specialists in the sense which I have explained. It should obtain for teachers men in each generation who are producing the best work of that generation. Teaching should not stop, but rather should foster, production. The "enthusiasm of the lecture room," the contagious interest of companionship, should make the students partners in their teacher's work. The ferment of genius in its creative moment is quickly imparted. If a man is great he makes others believe in greatness. He makes them incapable of mean ideals and easy self-satisfaction. His pupils will accept no substitute for realities, but at the same time they learn that the only coin with which realities can be bought is life.

Our school has been such a workshop and such a nursery as I describe. What men it has turned out I have hinted already and do not need to say. What works it has produced is known to all the world. From ardent co-operation of student and teacher have sprung Greenleaf on Evidence and Stearns on Real Actions and Story's epoch-making Commentaries, and Parsons on Contracts and Washburn on Real Property, and, marking a later epoch, Langdell on Contracts and on Equity Pleading and Ames on Bills and Notes and Gray on Perpetuities, and I hope we may soon add Thayer on Evidence. You will notice that these books are very different in character from one another, but you will notice also how many of them have this in common, that they have marked and largely made an epoch.

There are plenty of men nowadays of not a hundredth part of Story's power who could write as good statements of the law as his, or better. And when some mediocre fluent book has been printed, how often have we heard it proclaimed, Lo, here is a greater than Story! But if you consider the state of legal literature when Story began to write, and from what wells of learning the discursive streams of his speech were fed, I think you will be inclined to agree with me that he has done more than any other English-speaking man in this century to make the law luminous and easy to understand.

But Story's simple philosophizing has ceased to satisfy men's minds. I think it might be said with safety that no man of his or of the succeeding generation could have stated the law in a form that deserved to abide, because neither his nor the succeeding generation possessed, or could have possessed, the historical knowledge - had made or could have made the analyses of principles which are necessary before the cardinal doctrines of the law can be known and understood in their precise contours and in their innermost meanings.

The new work is now being done. Under the influence of Germany science is gradually drawing legal history into its sphere. The facts are being scrutinized by eyes microscopic in intensity and panoramic in scope. At the same time, under the influence of our revived interest in philosophical speculation, a thousand heads are analyzing and generalizing the rules of law and the grounds on which they stand. The law has got to be stated over again, and I venture to say that in 50 years we shall have it in a form of which no man could have dreamed 50 years ago. And now I venture to add my hope and my belief that when the day comes which I predict, the professors of the Harvard Law School will be found to have had a hand in the change, not less important than that which Story has had in determining the form of the text-books of the last half-century.

Corresponding to the change which I say is taking place, there has been another change in the mode of teaching. How far the correspondence is conscious I do not stop to inquire. For whatever reason the professors of this school have said to themselves more definitely than ever before: We will not be contented to send forth students with nothing but a ragbag full of general principles - a throng of glittering generalities like a swarm of little bodiless cherubs fluttering at the top of one of Correggio's pictures. They have said that to make a general principle worth anything you must give it a body. You must show in which way and how far it would be applied actually in an actual system. You must show how it has gradually emerged as the felt reconciliation of concrete instances, no one of which established it in terms. Finally you must show its historic relations to other principles often of very different dates and origins, and thus set it in the perspective without which its proportions will never be truly judged.

In pursuance of these view there have been substituted for text-books more and more, so far as practicable, those books of cases which were received at first by many with a somewhat contemptuous smile and pitying contrast of the good old days, but which now, after 15 years, bid fair to revolutionize the teaching both of this country and of England.

I pause for a moment to say what I hope it is scarcely necessary for me to say - that in thus giving in my adhesion to the present methods of instruction I am not wanting in grateful and appreciative recollection - alas! it can be only recollection now - of the earlier teachers under whom I studied. In my day the dean of this school was Professor Parker, the ex-chief justice of New Hampshire, who I think was one of the greatest of American judges, and who showed in the chair the same qualities that made him famous on the bench. His associates were Parsons, almost if not quite a man of genius, and gifted with a power of impressive statement which I do not know that I have ever seen equalled, and Washburn, who taught us all to realize the meaning of the phrase which I have already quoted from Vaugerow - the enthusiasm of the lecture room. He did more for me than the learning of Coke and the logic of Fearne could have done without his kindly ardor.

To return, and to say a word more about the theory on which these books of cases are used, it has long seemed to me a striking circumstance that the ablest of the agitators for codification, Sir James Stephen, and the originator of the present mode of teaching, Mr. Langdell, start from the same premises to reach seemingly opposite conclusions. The number of legal principles is small, says, in effect, Sir James Stephen, therefore codify them. The number of legal principles is small, says Mr. Langdell, therefore they may be taught through the cases which have developed and established them. Well, I think there is much force in Sir James Stephens' argument, if you can find competent men and get them to undertake the task, and at any rate I am not now going to express an opinion that he is wrong. But I am certain from my own experience that Mr. Langdell is right. I am certain that when your object is not to make a bouquet of the law for the public, nor to prune and graft it by legislation, but to plant its roots where they will grow, in minds devoted henceforth to that one end, there is no way to be compared to Mr. Langdell's way. Why, look at it simply in the light of human nature. Does not a man remember a concrete instance more vividly than a general principle? And is not a principle more exactly and intimately grasped as the unexpressed major premise of the half dozen examples which mark its extent and its limits than it can be in any abstract form of words? Expressed or unexpressed, is it not better known when you have studied its embryology and the lines of its growth than when you merely see it lying dead before you on the printed page?

I have referred to my own experience. During the short time that I had the honor of teaching in the school it fell to me, among other things, to instruct the first year men in torts. With some misgivings I plunged a class of beginners straight into Mr. Ames collection of cases, and we began to discuss them together in Mr. Langdell's method. The result was better than I even hoped it would be. After a week or two, when the first confusing novelty was over, I found that my class examined the questions proposed with an accuracy of view which they never could have learned from text-books, and which often exceeded that to be found in the text-books. I at least, if no one else, gained a good deal from our daily encounters.

My experience as a judge has confirmed the belief I formed as a professor. Of course a young man cannot try or argue a case as well as one who has had years of experience.

Most of you also would probably agree with me that no teaching which a man receives from others at all approaches in importance what he does for himself and that one who has simply been a docile pupil has got but a very little way. But I do think that in the thoroughness of their training, and the systematic character of their knowledge, the young men of the present day start better equipped when they begin their practical experience than it was possible for their predecessors to have been. And although no school can boast a monopoly of promising young men, Cambridge, of course, has its full proportion of them at our bar, and I do think that the methods of teaching here bear fruits in their work.

I sometimes hear a wish expressed by the impatient that the teaching here should be more practical. I remember that a very wise and able man said to a friend of mine when he was beginning his professional life, "Don't know too much law," and I think we all can imagine cases where the warning would be useful. But a far more useful thing is what was said to me as a student by one no less wise and able - afterwards my partner and always my friend-when I was talking as young men do about seeing practice and all the other things which seemed practical to my experience: "The business of a lawyer is to know law." The professors of this law school mean to make their students know law. They think the most practical teaching is that which takes their students to the bottom of what they seek to know. They, therefore, mean to make them master the common law and equity as working systems, and think that when that is accomplished they will have no trouble with the improvements of the last half-century. I believe they are entirely right, not only in the end they aim at, but in the way they take to reach that end.

Yes, this school has been, is and I hope long will be, a centre where great lawyers perfect their achievements, and from which young men, even more inspired by their example than instructed by their teaching, go forth in their turn, not to imitate what their masters have done, but to live their own lives more freely for the ferment imparted to them here. The men trained in this school may not always be the most knowing in the ways of getting on. The noblest of them must often feel that they are committed to lives of proud dependence; the dependence of men who command no factitious aids to success, but rely upon unadvertised knowledge and silent devotion; dependence upon finding an appreciation which they cannot seek, but dependence proud in the conviction that the knowledge to which their lives are consecrated is of things which it concerns the world to know. It is the dependence of abstract thought, of science, of beauty, of poetry and art, of every flower of civilization, upon finding a soil generous enough to support it. If it does not, it must die. But the world needs the flower more than the flower needs life.

I said that a law school ought to teach law in the grand manner-that it had something more to do than simply to teach law. I think that we may claim for our school that it has not been wanting in greatness. I once heard a Russian say that in the middle class of Russia there were many specialists, in the upper class there were civilized men. Perhaps in America, for reasons which I have mentioned, we need specialists even more than we do civilized men. Civilized men who are nothing else are a little apt to think that they cannot breathe the American atmosphere. But if a man is a specialist it is most desirable that he should also be civilized; that he should have laid in the outline of the other sciences as well as the light and shade of his own; that he should be reasonable and see things in their proportion. Nay more, that he should be passionate as well as reasonable-that he should be able not only to explain but to feel. That the ardors of intellectual pursuit should be relieved by the charms of art, should be succeeded by the joy of life, become and end in itself.

At Harvard College is realized in some degree the palpitating manifoldness of a truly civilized life. Its aspirations are concealed because they are chastened and instructed, but I believe in my soul that they are not the less noble that they are silent. The golden light of the university is not confined to the undergraduate department. It is shed over all the schools. He who has once seen it becomes other than he was forever more. I have said that the best part of our education is moral. It is the crowning glory of this law school that it has kindled in many a heart an inextinguishable fire.

At the close of the oration the procession again was formed and marched to the gymnasium which they entered by the south door into the main hall where the tables had been set.

Hon. J. C. Carter of New York presided at the dinner. On his right was seated Judge Holmes, and on his left President Eliot. The menu was printed on heavy white linen paper, folded once, and tied with a bow of crimson ribbon.

HARVARD.College founded 1636.

Law school established 1815-1817.

Law school association, anniversary dinner, Cambridge, November 5th, 1886.

MENU.SOUP.

Consomme a la Printaniere.

Mock Turtle.ROASTS.Roast Turkey, Cranberry Sauce.

Roast Beef, with Mushrooms.

Roast Chicken.ENTREES.Escalloped Oysters.

Chicken Croquettes and Peas.

BOILED.Cold Ham. Cold Tongue.

Chicken Salad. Lobster Salad.

VEGETABLES.Potatoes. Plain Celery.

Dressed Celery.Dressed Lettuce. Tomatoes.

GAME.Cold Roast Quail, Split.

DESSERT.Fancy Ices. Spun Sugar.

Frozen Pudding. Charlotte Russe.

Ice Cream and Sherbet, all varieties.Fancy Cakes. Tea and Coffee.

Fruit. Nuts and Raisins.

Crackers, Cheese and Olives. Cigars.

At 3.45 Mr. Carter arose and spoke as follows: Gentlemen: I think we may felicitate ourselves upon the auspicious commencement of this Association; at least so far as it has gone it could not have been better with a solitary part omitted. Our friend Judge Holmes spoke in his oration of the grand manner in which the law ought to be studied and taught. To the men who come back to Cambridge rarely, and whose recollections of these places are of them as they were so many years ago, everything seems grand, and what grander building could we have found than Austin Hall to-day, (applause). To what grander building could we have gone to listen to our oration than the one in which we heard that of today? What grander oration could we have had? (Applause.) In what grander building could we have had our dinner than the one in which we are now assembled, provided that it is possible for anything to be heard in it, which I somewhat doubt.

Well, here we are, a lot of lawyers, together by ourselves; rather a rare occasion for an assembly composed exclusively of lawyers. You know what they used to say of the Roman Augurs, that whenever they met each other on the street they used to smile, and if half of what is said of lawyers is true, the same should be said of them now (Laughter).

The wits and satirists of all ages have sat down upon us pretty heavily. We have been accused of being the promoters of strife, grinding the faces of the poor, mere sophists, disregarding truth, dwelling upon quips and quirks and trifles. There is no form of misdoing which has not at some time or other been imputed to us. Well, now, I suppose that pretty much all of the wit, and pretty much all of the point of that, lies in its incongruity and its falsity. (Applause). Occasional exceptions occur, unworthy members of the profession do appear from time to time, and the incongruity between those and what the profession is generally found to be, and what it ought to be, is so great as to become ridiculous. But when we look for the real estimate in which lawyers and the legal profession are held by the community at large, we have better evidence to which to resort.

I suppose that three-fourths at least of all the members of the Congress of the United States, from the organization of the nation until the present time, have been lawyers. The statutes of the United States to-day, are they not a model monument of their learning, their devotion, their wisdom, their skill. A great majority of all the legislative bodies of all the States of the Union are, and ever have been, composed of lawyers. The great executive officers and the magistrates of the different states are for the most part lawyers. Can we estimate what the community would do if the profession of the law were stricken from the pursuits of human life? In whom or to whom are great pecuniary trusts and other of their prominent interests so entrusted as to lawyers? And how rarely is the trust betrayed. Why, I remember not very long ago a reverend gentleman whose name, were I at liberty to mention it, you would at once recognize as that of the most eminent and most distinguished of all divines, said to me that upon a certain occasion he was called upon by another to give advice upon matters relating to conduct. He gave to it his best reflections and came to a conclusion, but such was his sense of the importance of the business, and such he thought to be its difficulty that he could not feel sufficiently assured of the correctness of his conclusions. It had nothing to do with property; it had nothing to do with any legal right. It was a purely moral question, but deeply affecting character, deeply affecting reputation, both present and subsequent. He did not go the members of his own profession; he went neither to to theologians nor to moralists. He went to a lawyer whose name, were I at liberty to mention it, you would recognize as that of one of the most distinguished among you, and certainly not one of those who would be considered of the spiritually-minded sort. (Laughter.) A purely hard-headed business man. He submitted the problem to him and received an answer confirming his own conclusions, but accompanied with reasons so luminous and satisfactory that all doubt vanished from his mind.

We have some right, therefore, to say that the teachings of the law as they are pronounced by its highest ministers and by its judges, are not lacking in their moral force. Now, why is this theory? It is not because lawyers are any better than any other class of men, that they are started better, or that they become better after starting. It is because their labors have to do with the direct and immediate interests of mankind. It is because holding that property must pass from one hand to another, and deciding whether men shall go to the penitentiary and be deprived of their freedom; it is because in deciding these interests they have submitted to no other determinations except those founded upon the everlasting basis of truth and right. (Applause.) To so much of that everlasting basis as can be arranged and applied by the wisest and best of our race.

Now I have already made my speech over in yonder building, and I am not going to inflict upon you another. I find myself upon this elevated position that looks as if it were the bench of Judges and I the Chief Justice, and you the members of the bar. I shall treat these gentlemen here as Associate Justices, and shall not consult them upon the order of proceedings here. They will, of course, speak when they are spoken to, and give their opinions only when called for. [Laughter.] We have in the city in which my labors are spent, what they call a short calendar, and it is called on Friday too. It deals in causes that are short, and which take up very little time indeed, and they have another element,-that for the most part they have no merits. [Laughter and applause]. I propose to take up that short calendar, and from time to time to call those cases that are set down for them, a calendar not made by me or by the clerk of the court, and I think you must all agree with me that upon this occasion, the first ones who had to do with that great law school to which all of us, or most of us owe so much, should be the first person to address you. I therefore introduce to you Professor Langdell.

Professor Langdell was greeted with tremendous applause, and spoke as follows:-

GENTLEMEN OF THE HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION, I am very grateful for this reception. You will be surprised to learn that this is the second time that your president has called upon me to speak to the Harvard law school. The first time was nearly seventeen years ago, when I was about assuming the duties of the Dane Professorship, and I do not know that I can do better than to begin where I left off then. [Laughter]. On that occasion I called attention to the anomalous condition of legal education in English speaking countries. That anomaly consisted in the fact, that in those countries as a rule, the knowledge of law had been acquired only through, or in connection with its principle and administration, while in the rest of the world law had always been taught and learned in universities, and I ventured to express the opinion that the true interests of legal education in this country required that in this respect we should no longer follow in the footsteps of England, our mother country, but should bring ourselves into harmony with the rest of Christendom. Since that time I have not concerned myself with legal education beyond or outside of the Harvard Law School, but I tried to do my part toward making the teaching and the study of law in that school worthy of a university; toward making the venerable institution, the 250th anniversary of which we are now celebrating, a true university, and the Law School not its least creditable department; in short, toward placing the Law School so far as the different circumstances would permit, in the position occupied by the law faculties of the universities of continental Europe. And what I say for myself in this respect, I am sure I could say with equal truth for all my associates. In order to accomplish this result, so far as it depended upon the Law School, it was necessary to establish two things; first that law is a science, and secondly that all the valuable materials of that science are contained in printed books. If law be not a science, the University best consults its dignity in having nothing to do with its teaching. If it be not a science, it can best be learned by serving an apprenticeship to one engaged in the practice of it. If it be a science it will not be disputed that it is one of the greatest and most difficult. Again the University can only teach law from printed books.

If therefore there are other and better means of teaching or learning law, or if printed books can only be used to the best advantage in connection with other means, for example working in a lawyer's office, or attendance upon courts of justice, it must be confessed that Universities cannot furnish such means. But if printed books are the source or sources of all legal learning, if every student who would in any degree master law as a science must resort to those ultimate sources, if the only aid which it is possible for him to receive is such as may be given by teachers who have travelled the same road with him, then it fairly follows that a University and a University alone has all the means and all the facilities for teaching and learning the law. [Applause.]

My associates and myself, therefore, have constantly acted upon the principle that law is a science and that it must be learned from printed books, accordingly the library has been the most constant object of our regard. We have not done so much for it as we should be glad to do, but, we have done much. Indeed the library of the present day, one would find difficulty in identifying as the library of seventeen years ago. Everything that laboratories are to the chemist, what the museum of Natural History is to the Zoologist, what the Botanical Garden is to the Botanist, the library is to our institution. If such is the nature of law and the mode of studying it, it easily follows: first that a good academic education is necessary for its skillful pursuit, secondly, that the study of law should be regular, systematic and earnest, not intermittent, desultory or perfunctory, thirdly, that its study should be prosecuted for a length of time bearing some reasonable proportion to its extent and difficulty.

To secure the first of these results we have established an examination for admission to those who are not graduates. To secure the third we have made three years study necessary in all cases for a degree. To secure the second we have done several things. First, we have established a course of study which is required to be pursued in the prescribed order. Secondly, we have established annual examinations to be held at the end of each year in the study of that year. Third, we require the students to pass their examination in the studies of the first year at the end of that year as their condition of passing into the second year, and in the studies of the second year at the end of that year as a condition of passing into the third year. And we do not permit the students to pass the examination of the studies of any year unless he has been regularly admitted to that year at the beginning of the year. Nor do we permit a candidate for a degree to pass an examination any year except the year to which he properly belongs. Fourthly, we have increased the amount of instruction in the school, in the last seventeen years, from 20 hours a week to something like 35 hours a week, and this enables us to give the entire course of three years every year, thus giving to every class its appropriate instruction.

Mr. Langdell then summed up the results of these measures and gave an eloquent tribute to President Eliot. He continued as follows:

One other observation I will make, gentlemen, connected with what I have said already. I spoke of the teacher of law having travelled the same road which his pupils are now travelling. I wish to emphasize the fact that it is the office of the teacher of law to accompany his pupils on the road that is new to them, but with which he is well acquainted from having often travelled it before. What qualifies a person, therefore, to become a teacher of law is not experience in the work of a lawyer's office; is not experience in dealing with men; is not experience in the trial nor argument of causes; nor experience, in short, in the highest legal knowledge of any form, but experience in the acquisition of legal knowledge. Not the experience of a Roman advocate nor of a Roman praetor, still less the experience of a Roman procurator, but the experience of a Roman jurist consult. I repeat my thanks to you, gentlemen. (Applause.)

Mr. Carter-We are fortunate in having among us a gentleman who I think entered the school at its very origin, and who having passed through a long career in his profession, remains in his green old age to give endorsement to our present enterprise, and I beg to present the Honorable Samuel Sewall.

Mr. President: - It gives me the highest pleasure to meet so large an assembly of lawyers, and especially when they are engaged in so noble a work as the improvement of legal education and assisting the Harvard Law School. When I look back upon my early entrance upon the profession, (for I shall not stop to praise the Law School, it has already been well done.) I feel now that I was in the dark ages. The state of law at that time, especially the remedial part of law, was so wretched that I can look at it in no other way than as a part of the dark ages. The first thing was the principle established that no man except in certain instances, could be a witness in his own case. That was the strong principle on which the law was based, that no person who had the slightest interest in the case could be a witness. The first principle then of our remedial law as it was to exclude one of the best modes of getting evidence and getting at the truth. They seemed to think in those days that to exclude every sort of a witness was a system in getting of the truth, because all men were liars. [Laughter and applause.] That you know is all changed.

Then the next miserable thing in our law was the state of pleading. This artificial logical system by which it was supposed that justice was promoted proved in practice miserable failure, and every person who practised at that time will admit, I think, that it was a miserable failure; for a man might be driven out of court in a good case upon a point of pleading which had nothing to do with the real merits of the case, and the defendant in the same way, by faults of pleading, might have judgment and execution against him. Now I say that was a wretched state of things. Then, also, we may look at little further. We find that the Supreme Court had not full equity jurisdiction. Then equity jurisdiction was exceedingly meagre, and it frequently happened that a man had a 'good case in law, that is, he had a right which was recognized by all the courts-recognized everywhere-but the remedies of the common law were entirely insufficient to vindicate those rights; he could not get an injunction in any case; could not bring men to the specific performance of contracts, and in many other ways in which the direct remedy of equity would be sure, the common law refused to execute. This was acknowledged by our court and was all remedied since by the court having full jurisdiction. Then there was one other thing which in those times was very bad. We had no court of insolvency when a man failed, and frequently nothing was done when he failed to enable creditors to attach his property, and if he made an assignment the assignment was not always just; that is, they did not put all the creditors on an equal footing. There has been no remedy known for this except the insolvency system. A national insolvency system would be more perfect if we could get one, but as far as as the State goes the insolvency system is a very good one, and all that we see has been, as you all know, perfectly remedied, and you have a better system to practise under than you ever had. I might go further to specify other branches of the law, but I do not think it would be just to you to trespass on your time in that way. I think, taking it altogether, that the present state of the law of Massachusetts is as great an improvement on the old system as that magnificent Austin building is compared with the miserable place in which I studied law. (Applause.) There is one branch of the law, however, which has been studied with great success since I began my practice in the law, and that is the abstruse doctrine of fees and retainers, whidh has been studied with great success, not only in this state, but I believe still more in our sister state, New York. (Laughter).

After Mr. Sewell had ceased speaking Judge Cooley of Michigan was called upon by the President and delivered an entertaining five minute speech from manuscript.

President Eliot spoke as follows:- Mr. President and gentlemen, it did not use to be the custom for the President of Harvard College to have anything to do with professional schools. I remember the first time I went into the Law School building after I was elected President. It was in the autumn of 1869, a few weeks after the term began. I stopped at the door that many of you remember, the first door on the right after getting there, the outside door, and I opened it and received the usual salutation of the ever genial Governor Washburn. [Applause.] "Oh, how are you? Take a chair," this without looking at me at all. When he saw who it was he held up both his hands with his favorite gesture and said, "I declare, I never before saw the President of Harvard College in this building." Still I proposed to make myself acquainted with the needs and plans of all the departments, and of the Law School among them as one of the most important. The next winter Prof. Parsons resigned the Dane Professorship, which became vacant. Then I remembered that when I was a junior in college in the year 1851 I used to go to the room of a friend of mine in the Divinity School, long since dead, and there I heard a young man talk who was making the notes to Parsons on Contracts. He was generally eating his supper at the time, which usually consisted of a bowl of brown bread and milk. I was a mere boy, I was only 18 years old, but it was given me to understand that I was listening to a man of genius. And in the year 1870, I brought that man from New York and got him to become a a Professor in our Law School. That was Prof. Langdell [Applause]. Well, then he told me a great many of the things he has told you this afternoon. I have heard all that before. He told me that law was a science; I was quite prepared to believe it. He told me that the way to study science was to go to the original sources. I knew that was true, for I had been brought up in the science of chemistry myself, and one of the first principles in a physical science is never to take a fact out of treatises but to go to the original memoir of the discoverer.

So with great patience in the course of fifteen or sixteen years during which Prof. Langdell has been characterized for his earnest devotion as a Professor to certain lines of policy and to the zeal and intelligence with which his work was accomplished, building on all that was good in the past, is due the fact that this school has been converted into a scientific School of Law. I think there is no change in the University which I have seen during the last 17 years which is more satisfactory to all those who have taken part in it, or more important with reference to the interests of the community, than this change that I have seen in the Law School. Four or five other professors added their labors, and if "genius is a remarkable capacity for work" they are all men of genius. I do not think it necessary for me, the only layman present, holding the same position in every faculty of the University-I am always a layman wherever I go-it it not necessary for me to say more of the school that we all love or of its history. So far as I have known it no event has been more agreeable to me during the last sixteen years, than the institution of this Association. For it adds a force to this school and insures a future prosperity. It adds a force without which no professional school can greatly prosper or greatly support the profession which it feeds.

President Eliot's speech was greeted with warm applause. Gen. Alexander Lawton of Georgia, a graduate of 1842 then spoke, alluding to the influence of the Law on the South during the late war. He was followed by Geo. Q. Shattuck, Esq., who talked of the legal profession in relation to the early history of Harvard College. At the mention of the name of Edward Austin by President Carter, three hearty cheers were given for the generous donor of Austin Hall. Mr. F. W. Hackett of the Washington Bar was called upon and made a few brief and witty remarks. Prof. Gray, said a word or two in regard to the School, and Judge Hoar gave a few reminiscences from his past experience while studying law in the School.

The exercises of the day were brought to a close with three rousing cheers under the leadership of the Chief Marshal, Mr. Roger Walcott.