SENATE-BARRISTERS' BALL The Junior Philippine Senate and the Philippine Barristers deserve the warmest congratulations for the grand success of the dance and reception given by them in honor of the Faculty of the College of Law. All those who attended seemed to forget the cares and hardships of life under the influence of the succeeding fox-trots and one-steps with so many charming young ladies. Our Dean Emeritus, setting aside the duties imposed on him by his official position, came to share with us the joys of the evening. COLLEGE OF LAW UNIFORM As a consequence of a resolution recently passed by the Student Council, the Dean issued an order requiring all those taking the Military Science Course to provide themselves with a uniform to be prescribed by Major Tharp. This is, perhaps, a step that many lead to the adoption of a College of Law uniform. UNIVERSITY ORATORICAL CONTEST President Villamor has heartily approved the suggestion made by Attorney Victoriano Yamzon, instructor in Oratory and Public Speaking, to the effect that an oratorical contest be had in which all the colleges of the University should participate. Plans are now being arranged and if they do not fail a University Oratorical Contest will be held next March. ATHLETIC REPRESENTATIVE Elections having been duly held, Mr. Pedro Sorreta from the Senior Class was elected to represent the College of Law in the University Athletic Board of Control. THE MONDAY MENTOR As a sample of the "Monday Mentor" we reproduce the following number thereof, posted on the bulletin board from August 6 to 12: THE MONDAY MENTOR No. 2 DOING YOUR BEST August 6, 1917 "If I pass, that's enough." This is what the average student says. But is it right? Is it manly? This inadequate and improper aim accounts for the fact that most students get grades lower than 2. It is the formula which forms the ordinary mortal. It is the threshold of the vast dumping-ground for mediocrities. For, of a truth, no man will get more than what he wants to get. The pity of it is that perhaps a majority of the students who think thus could obtain 1 or 2 if they earnestly did their best. Hence they are not leading their own existence. They are borrowers, at a heavy and usurious interest, of the cheapness of other people. They do not know what self-realization is. To each student, I want to say: Your best is yourself. If you don't do your best, you are not yourself. Do you prize your own worth and individuality? If so, then abhor the idea of being somebody else who is not of your caliber. Rise to the utmost of your own stature. You may be a giant, for all you know. In other words, be just to yourself. I have spoken of getting high grades. Do not mistake my meaning. I know that obtaining excellent grades should not be an end in itself. Rather, a high grade is a consummation devoutly to be wished, not so much for what it is, as for what it implies plenitude of endeavor. And plenitude of endeavor is what pushes a man in actual life to ascendancy over his fellow-men. If you want the best in life, yield the best in your life. It's a question of quid pro quo. There is a Filipino proverb which, translated into English, runs this way: "Whosoever has kept something above him has something to look forward to." Ponder on this piece of wisdom of our fore fathers, and let the "something" which you lay up be your all. Giving the fullness of yourself is not, however, possible if you don't believe in yourself. Unless there is this living, mighty impulse that should continually animate your zeal, you may set in motion the concentrated force of your application for sometime, but you will not last. Louis Agassiz said in his youth that he felt within himself "the strength of a whole generation" to become the first naturalist of his time. Now, if you don't feel within yourself "the strength of a whole generation" to be at least one of the best lawyers of your time, you will not have the endurance thoroughly to prepare every day the lessons assigned, which are very trying, as you well know. Don't say, "I can't" because that is tantamount to saying, "I won't," and if you say "I won't," better go back home and plant sugar-cane or coconut. If you must be a lawyer, be a great lawyer. Moreover, you should do your best not only because in so doing you will fight your way through college and through life, but also because it is your duty to do your best. While I want to emphasize the material usefulness of straining one's faculties, yet I would not have you lose sight of the higher and nobler principles upon which unstinted exertion rests. Do not make success a fetish. This warning is needful, the more especially because there are, unfortunately, some cases where owing to an innate shortage of intellectual powers, intense efforts do not bring their commensurate material reward. If yours be one of such cases, don't exclaim, "What is the use!" Go on working as hard as you can. You may not get high grades in college; you may not, after leaving the University, be counted among the most successful. But what of it? You will have won a grander, more uplifting victory the innermost happiness born of the consciousness that you have done your duty. I take it that, in the last analysis, sense of manhood is the legitimate primal object of all human endeavor. JORGE BOCOBO, The outstanding fact in legal education in this country during the past twentyfive years is the shift from the law office to the law school as the avenue of approach to the bar. This is shown both by the increase in the number of students in the law schools and by the increase in the number of schools themselves. In 1891 there were 96 schools with a total attendance of 12,516 students. In 1916 there are, according to the reports of the United States Bureau of Education, 124 schools, with an aggregate attendance of 22,993 students. The following is a summary of the statistics for the year ended June 30, 1916: Number of law schools. Instructors. . . . . Law Schools, 1915-16. Students (men, 22,306; women, 687) Students with college degrees. Graduated in 1916.. Volumes in libraries... Value of grounds, buildings, equipment, etc... Total receipts for the year. 124 1,531 22,993 4,451 4,323 1,164,687 $5,593,740 Amount of permanent endowments or productive funds. $2,091,592 .$1,500,669 This increase in the number of institutions teaching law and in the number of students preparing for the bar in this way makes on the whole for improvement, but the ointment is not without its flies. The change has been brought about by a number of causes, chief of which is that the average law office has become a much less effective place than it formerly was for the purpose of instruction. It has been pointed out repeatedly that the successful lawyer of to-day is too busy to give anything like adequate time to the instruction of young men in his office. A second cause, resulting of course somewhat from the first, is that the American Bar Association and many State associations have recommended, and even urged that young men going to the bar should seek their instruction in law schools. *This report forms Chapter XI of the Reports of the United States Commissioner of Education for the year ending June 30, 1916. Unfortunately some lawyers, and some persons who are not lawyers, have seen in this tendency and in this organized professional support of the law schools an opportunity to make money out of the functions of legal instruction. Thus it is that there are a large number of proprietary schools organized on a commercial basis, advertising extensively, frequently without any regard to the dictates of good taste or of ordinary honesty. It is only fair to add that there are some proprietary schools conducted by conscientious men and with as much adherence to the requirements of a sound educational policy as is possible within the limitations under which they necessarily work. Many high-minded lawyers give of their time and energy to the work of instruction in such schools, not infrequently for wholly inadequate compensation, and in some instances without any compensation at all. They are led to do this largely out of a desire to be helpful to young men seeking the profession to which they themselves have devoted their lives. Sometimes such men give really adequate instruction, but the instances of this are necessarily growing increasingly rare, for the work of legal instruction has become more and more a distinct profession, with an increasingly growing appreciation by practicing lawyers of the demands made upon the time, energy, and devotion of the really scientific law teacher. Men engaged in the active practice of law, especially if they are able and successful, have neither the time nor the energy left after the day's work in the practice of their profession to do the work absolutely necessary for developing the highest type of scholarship or for acquiring the technique of law teaching in its modern development. It is important, of course, that law teaching shall be in close contact with specific and practical needs of the profession; but, on the other hand, if law is to grow, if it is to become liberalized, and if it is to meet the wants of the changing community, it is extremely important that the function of legal education should be in the hands of men who are able to view law in something of a scientific and a philosophical spirit and with a consciousness of its evolutionary character. For these reasons and others more obvious the proprietary city school can seldom give to its students a sense of the importance of making the law conform to changing conditions of society in performing its prime function of accomplishing justice. Despite the brilliant things that have been said about the difference between law and justice, and conceding all that any rational person would claim as to the necessity of certainty and such permanence as may be possible in the rules of law, there are nevertheless overwhelming reasons why the endeavor should be to make aw coincide with justice to the fullest possible extent. MULTIPLICATION OF SCHOOLS It is with these thoughts in mind that one cannot but deplore the growth of mushroom schools in the commercial centers. California, for example, has at least two excellent schools, amply equipped in every way to train all the lawyers the State can possibly need, except those who for one reason or another wish to go outside for their legal education. Nevertheless, according to the Carnegie Foundation study, here were in 1915 seven other schools in California, and the past year has witnessed the addition of still another to the list, its faculty being made up of men actively engaged in practice at the bar. The same situation in multiplication of schools, subject to such limitations that they can not possibly do the best work, is to be found in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and other large centers. Frank speaking on this subject is unfortunate in that it is almost certain to give offense to high-minded, conscientious lawyers who are giving their time to instruction in such schools from motives altogether creditable to themselves. But the future of legal education and indirectly of the bar and of the great work which it is its duty to perform for the State make it a plain duty, however unpleasant, to insist upon a conscientious and open-eyed consideration of the situation. Men like to speak of lawyers as officers of the court, and such they are in some sense and to a large extent, and in just that sense and to that extent they are public officers; and irrespective of their official status they are of course the most powerful single agency in making, declaring and enforcing the principles of private law. Upon their intelligence, their knowledge of legal principle, and their real understanding of the function of law depends in no small degree the very future of the law itself. Furthermore, as judges, as legislators, and as administrators they affect powerfully the administration of law and the accomplishing of justice in the State. This being the case, it should be frankly recognized that the practice of law is not a matter of private right, but a privilege, and a privilege, moreover, which should be controlled by the public in the interest of the public alone. These considerations require that the matter of legal education should be looked at in the same light and controlled in the same way and for the same reasons. These purposes are so nearly self-evident, and they concern community interests so important, that it is amazing that their force should not be recognized by the public in an insistence that legal education and admission to the bar should be regarded as wholly without the scope of mere private right or enterprise. A man should no more be permitted to practice law merely because it would be for him a gainful occupation, or because for other reasons he wishes to, than a man should be permitted to become a judge or legislator for the same reasons. With almost as much truth it may be said that the function of legal education should not be confided to persons or institutions, merely because the exercise of the function may be profitable or agreeable to such persons or institutions. The state, in this matter, should insist not only upon the best available methods and instruments of legal education, and should not tolerate the suggestion that it be satisfied with instrumentalities and methods which may perhaps suffice to give a man a smattering of the law or even to enable him to pass examinations for the bar. This last assertion is made with confidence, because with the means at hand and with the time and other limitations under which boards of law examiners must act under present conditions, the bar examination, however valuable, cannot answer as the sole means of determining a candidate's qualifications for practicing law. |