e question of law is argued by
students who have been previously assigned as counsel; a member of the
faculty sits as Chief-Justice, two students being associated with him as
Justices. Upon the decision of the question written opinions are
prepared by each of the Associate Justices and read by them at a
subsequent session of the court. These opinions are afterwards printed
and bound under the title of "Boston University Reports."

In October last (1885) the school opened with one hundred and
seventy-one students, and with the following list of lecturers and their
topics: Brooks Adams, _Chartered Rights_; Edmund H. Bennet, _Agency,
Contracts, Criminal Law, Partnership, Wills_; Melville M. Bigelow,
_Bills and Notes, Insurance, Torts_; Uriel H. Crocker, _Massachusetts
Conveyancing_; Samuel S. Curry, _Elocution and Oratory_; Benjamin R.
Curtis, _Jurisdiction and Practice of the United States Courts_; William
G. Hammond, _History of the Common Law_; John Lathrop, _Corporations_;
James K. Maynadier, _Patent Law_; Elias Merwin (who succeeded the late
Judge Dwight Foster in 1884), _Equity Jurisprudence, Equity Pleading_;
John Ordronaux, _Medical Jurisprudence_; John E. Wetherbee, _Real
Property_; Edward J. Phelps, _Constitutional Law_; Charles T. Russell,
_Admiralty and Shipping, Evidence, Parliamentary Law, Pleading and
Practice_; Charles T. Russell, Jr., _Law of Elections_; James Schouler,
_Bailments, Domestic Relations_; George R. Swasey, _Sales_; Francis
Wharton, _Conflict of Laws_.

In this current school year there are one hundred and seventy-five
undergraduate students, among them men from Maine, California, and
Florida; while during the fourteen years of its existence the school has
had among its members students from nearly every State in the Union, the
Territories, and District of Columbia, as well as several from the
Empire of Japan.

The graduates now number about six hundred and fifty, and the school is
to be congratulated on the success which many of them have attained in
professional and public life. In this Commonwealth, during the year just
closed, the alumni counted among them members of the Governor's Council,
State Senators, Mayors, District Attorneys, Registers of Probate,
Representatives, and Clerks of Courts; while in some of the Western
States graduates, though still young, wear judicial honors.

The many friends of the school suffered a great loss in the recent
sudden death of Mr. John E. Wetherbee.