Eldest of existing American law schools organized as such is the Harvard Law School, which was established in 1817. While it is true that as early as 1779 Isaac Royall, a Massachu setts citizen, then resident in London, had be queathed property to Harvard College for the establishment of a chair of law, the fund did not become available until 1815, and the duties of the incumbent, up to the time of the ap pointment of Hon. Asahel Stearns as university professor of law in 1817, consisted merely in the delivery of 15 lectures annually to the senior class in the college. Professor Stearns re mained 12 years at the head of the law school, and it may justly be said with every desire to render due credit to this distinguished and faithful instructor that they were years of small beginnings and of little advancement for the institution. The Litchfield school enjoyed such a high repute that it easily attracted a far larger and more enthusiastic attendance, while even the Northampton school was a dangerous rival. In 1829, however, a new phase was placed upon the condition and prospects of the Harvard Law School by Hon. Nathan Dane's generous donation of $10,000 for the endowment of a new professorship of law, coupled with his request that Mr. Justice Story of the United States Supreme Court, Marshall's great co adjutor and the only one of his associates who fairly with him the fame of the early administration of that mighty bench, be ap pointed the first Dane professor.
Simultaneously, John Hooker Ashmun, then head preceptor of the Northampton school, was tendered the chair of the Royall professor ship. The average of attendance at the Cam bridge school had then sunk to that of a single student, but upon the acceptance of its head ship by Judge Story a revival of interest was manifested and the close of his first year's administration saw in the neighborhood of 30 pupils enrolled. The Northampton school im mediately ceased to exist and the Litchfield school was abandoned four years later. Pro fessor Ashmun's death in 1833 was followed by the election, as Judge Story's colleague, of Simon Greenleaf, an advocate of eminence, the first official reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Judicial Court of the State of Maine, and the distinguished author of that treatise on the law of evidence, which at once became, as it has since remained, a standard of au thority in all countries ruled by English law.
The Yale Law School is second in age only to that of Harvard, and, while ordinarily spoken of as established in 1824, practically dates from the appointment in 1826 of Hon. David Daggett, a judge of the Superior Court of Connecticut, to the professorship of law in the college —a chair which had been established, indeed, as early as 1801, under the presidency of Rev. Dr. Timothy Dwight, and had been previously ad ministered by the Hon. Elizur Goodrich, but merely as a lectureship on the leading principles of legal science with no view to qualifying students for the bar. Professor Daggett, how ever, had been, up to the time of his appoint ment, associated with a leading advocate, Sam uel J. Hitchcock, in the conduct of a private law school in New Haven, and, under his su pervision, the Yale department of law speedily took shape as a practical law school.
In 1833, graduates of the Litchfield school established a law school at Cincinnati, and similar schools were founded at Louisville, Ky., in 1846 and at Lebanon, Tenn., in 1847. The number of American law schools prior to 1850 was thus extremely limited and the aggregate attendance upon their courses was correspond ingly small.
Twenty years later, in 1870, the number of law schools had increased to 28, with an aggre gate attendance of 1,653 students. In 1880 there were 48 schools, serving 3,134 students; in 1890, 54 schools with 4,518 attendants, and in 1901 the number of schools had reached 100, with more than 13,000 pupils enrolled. The report of the United States Commissioner of Educa tion for 1910 gives statistics of attendance at 114 law schools of a total student body num bering 19,567, of whom 205 were women. The distribution of these schools among the various States was as follows: One each in Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Idaho, Maine, New Jer sey, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington and West Virginia; two each in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oregon and Wisconsin; three each in Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska and Vir ginia; four each in California, Pennsylvania and North Carolina; five each in Kentucky and Tennessee; six each in the District of Columbia, Indiana and Missouri; seven in Ohio and nine each in Illinois and New York. The signifi
cance of this vast and rapid growth may per haps be more readily grasped when one remem bers that from 1875 to 1899 the number of students enrolled in professional schools in the United States increased as follows: In theol ogy, 58 per cent ; in medicine, 177 per cent; in law, 343 per cent.
In 1910 there were 184 American schools of theology, with an attendance of 11,012 students, an increase of 3,000 students over the number of students in 1900, while the number of stu dents in the 114 law schools rose from 12,516 in 1900 to 19,567 in 1910.
At 55 law schools the course essential to graduation covers three years; at 38 a two years' course leads to a bachelor's degree, while five institutions in the Southern States have only a one-year course. Under the influence of the section on legal education of the American Bar Association, a constant and gratifying ad vance in the standard of instruction and in the lengthening of the course for the bachelor's de gree in American law schools is to be noted. In 1890, only eight schools required three years' attendance for the bachelor's degree, while eight years later progress in this direction had been so great that no less an authority than Joseph H. Choate, in the annual address delivered be fore the American Bar Association, did not hesitate to declare, ((The standard of legal edu cation has never before been advanced to its present height. The young men who come annually from the law schools to recruit our ranks, are better equipped and qualified — far more so, than we ever were — to enter upon the arduous and responsible duties that await them." The marked elevation in the requirements for admission to American schools of law is shown by the fact that while, prior to 1877, no entrance examinations were prescribed in any of them, and so late as 1890 there was but a single institution demanding a demonstration of precedent educational attainments equivalent to the requirements for college matriculation, nearly one-half of the recognized law schools of this country now deny admission to appli cants except upon terms that would practically secure their entrance to the average college of liberal arts. The highest standard of admission is that prescribed by Harvard, which for some years past has refused to admit, as candidates for degrees of law, students not holding the degree of bachelor of arts, conferred by some college of recognized standing. In this position the Cambridge authorities have been followed, not without great hesitation and well-founded reluctance, by Columbia. The strongest objec tion to such a requirement may be summed up in the statement that, there being no necessary correlation between the courses of study pur sued by various students in different institu tions leading up to the academic degree, its possession is not strong evidence of any special equipment for the pursuit of legal studies; and that the object aimed at might be better and more directly attained by the establishment of entrance examinations at the various schools of law sufficiently comprehensive in scope and exhaustive in character to establish the appli cant's fitness to enter intelligently upon the study of the principles of law. Ninety-seven schools, with an enrolment of 8,464 students, constituting the Association of American Law Schools, have united in the uniform requirement that each school belonging to the association shall maintain an entrance examination equiv alent to that required for graduation from a high school.