icult branch of law, from the lips of an eminent counsellor who
has but lately exhausted the subject in an important case at the bar, is
a rare and precious pleasure. At our medical schools the students sit at
the feet of the leading physicians and surgeons of the day. Why are
young lawyers sent forth to practise, acquainted only with the old
masters of the law, and ignorant, often, of the very names of the
eminent ones of their day and generation? Chief-Justice Shaw said, "A
man may be a laborious student, have an inquiring and discriminating
mind, and have all the advantage which a library of the best books can
afford; and yet, without actual attendance on courts, and the means and
facilities which practice affords, he would be little prepared either to
try questions of fact or argue questions of law." "I was once asked,"
said a high legal authority, "to inspect the examination-books of a
graduating class in a law school. The student whose work I was shown was
the son of a distinguished man, a faithful scholar, and a young man of
excellent ability. The subject he had written upon was Equity
Jurisprudence,--one of the most difficult branches of the law. He had,
indeed, studied his English models carefully, and his book showed the
extreme theoretical form of instruction pursued at the school. Among
other things, in describing the course of equity procedure in England,
he fully and elaborately explained each minute step; to what _building
in London_ certain papers were to be taken on a certain day, and at a
precise time, and in what _room_ filed; _and I certainly expected to be
told in what pigeon-hole_."

The Boston School of Law was opened, in 1872, under the supervision of
the Boston University, of which it is a department. The first
instruction was given at No. 18 Beacon street, where the school remained
for two years. The school opened with sixty-five students. The late Hon.
George S. Hillard was the Dean. The lecturers comprised such well-known
names as Edmund H. Bennett, Henry W. Paine, Judge Benjamin F. Thomas,
Dr. Francis Wharton, Judge Dwight Foster, Charles T. Russell, Judge
Benjamin R. Curtis, William Beach Lawrence, Judge Otis P. Lord, Dr. John
Ordronaux, Nicholas St. John Greene, Melville M. Bigelow, and Edward L.
Pierce. It is safe to say that no other Law School of that date,
anywhere in the country, could have offered to its students a better
list of instructors than this. A remarkably varied judicial and