Of the great names in the history of the law schools in the last half-century the name of Christopher Columbus Long dell is the most illustrious. Called from the New York bar to the Harvard Law School in 1870 by President Eliot—in the early years of his great executive career—Longdell inaugurated what has since become known as the case system of teaching and of learning law. The case system represents the study of the law from cases, or decisions, as reported in the official records of the courts. It is the inductive system. It reaches general principles from specific instances or facts. The previous method was rather deductive, beginning with general princi ples. It might also be called the labors. tory method. It has obtained wide cur rency. It has been subjected to certain changes; but the essential elements of the system are still maintained both at Harvard and other leading schools.
As has been said, legal education pre pares for a practical profession. The schools have neither made nor sought to make, as a rule, jurists. The philosophi cal aspects of the science have made only a slight appeal to students. Perhaps the nearer approach to the philosophical re lationship lies in the courses on the con stitution of the United States—courses which the best schools give. Research occupies a very insignificant place in the legal curriculum; but many teachers do recognize that the opportunity for the philosophic study of the law is command ing or even obligatory.
At the present time the public influence of the study of the law and of the mem bers of the profession is of peculiar in terest. In the political judgments law yers as a class are conservative. They recognize the rights of persons and of property, inherited from a long historic tradition. By comparative reasoning they also recognize the duties which both persons and property represent. In a time, therefore, of social stress and storm, of radicalism in thought, speech and act, they can be relied upon as stabilizing forces which will help to hold together the constituent elements of the community of the state. In his great work, "Democracy in America," De Tocqueville pointed out the fact that the legal profession was a counterpoise to the radicalism of democracy. In con serving such results the American sys tem of legal education, therefore, occu pies the highest place.
Legal education, as conducted in the law school, represents one of the most important contributions made by Amer ica to modern civilization. Such a recog nition is commonly accredited to it throughout the English-speaking world.