Law School of the University of Michigan
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Michlgran Universily Lawo School LAW SCHOOL BUILDING. LAW SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. BY HENRY WADE ROGERS, Dean of the Department of Law of ttheUniversity of Michigan. ception of the period in which he served the HEthe University two largest of Michiganuniversities is inone theof country as Minister to China, and more re- United States, and this position it has at- cently while he was acting as a member of tained within a comparatively few years. In the Fishery Commission intrusted with the June, 1887, it celebrated its semi-centennial ; delicate duty of attempting an adjustment of and the University Calendar this year issued the difficulties existing between the United shows a Faculty roll of one hundred and States and Great Britain. He has the satis- eight professors, instructors, and qssistants, faction of knowing that during his admin- as well as the names of eighteen hundred istration the University of Michigan has and eighty-two students. Harvard Univer- grown from an institution with eleven hun- sity, founded in 1636, and the oldest institu- dred and ten students and a Faculty roll of tion of learning in the country, celebrating thirty-six, to its present proportions. its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary The founders of the State of Michigan in November, i886, leads it in numbers and their descendants have kept in sacred by only seventeen students. In 1871 the remembrance that memorable article in the Hon. James 13. Angell, LL.D., became Ordinance of 1787, which proclaims that, President of the University of Michigan, "religion, morality, and knowledge being and from that time to the present has con- necessary to good government and the hap- tinued to act in that capacity, with the ex- piness of mankind, schools and the means 26 HeinOnline -- 1 Green Bag 189 1889 I90 The Green Bag. of education shall forever be encouraged;" shaped the educational policy of the State of thirty years and the authorities of the University have Michigan, in that they consented in their inscribed those words in glowing letters on ago to establish a School of Law it is matter for their University Hall. This was fitting, for State University. Not that consent the sentiment is the corner-stone on which astonishment that the State should of physicians the whole University has been reared. It to tax itself for the education in tax- was founded by the State and is maintained and lawyers. If the State is justified people for public education, if it can by the State, but its students come from ing the teach the scholar to read the every quarter of the globe. During the tax them to analyze the present year its students are drawn from languages of other peoples, to the story of thirty-five of the thirty-eight States and structure of the flowers, to read rocks, no one from five of the Territories, as well as from the earth as written upon the the physi- England, Germany, Russia, Japan, Turkey, should, question its right to teach lawyer to ad- Italy, Hungary, New Zealand, Porto Rico, cian to heal the sick, and the of his Nova Scotia, Hawaiian Islands, Manitoba, vise the citizen for the protection The Province of Quebec, Province of Ontario, rights to life, liberty, and property. and Mexico. State is a means to an end. It is charged and The University of Michigan is composed with the protection of the public health, its citizens of a College of' Liberal Arts, termed the it exists to protect the rights of of justice, Department of Literature, Science, and the and to secure the administration pos- Arts ; a School of Law; two Schools of But the administration of justice is only Medicine,-the Department of Medicine and sible when'there exists a body of men trained made com- Surgery or "regular" school, and the Ho- in a knowledge of the laws, and mceopathic Medical College ; a School of petent to administer them as judges on the Pharmacy; and a College of Dental Surgery. bench, and as lawyers at the bar to ad- The Department of Literature, Science, and vise the court and counsel the oppressed. the Arts was first established, but its devel- If the State can teach anything more than opment was slow. Even in i85o the Board the elementary branches at public expense, of Visitors in an official report declared that it certainly should be able to teach a knowl- there were only fifty students at that time in edge of the law. But the wisdom of the actual attendance in that Department. In people of Michigan in establishing a law 185o the Department of Medicine and Sur- school is seen when we reflect that they dis- gery was established, and in 1859 the De- carded the old notion that the place to learn partment of Law. The opening of these law is in a lawyer's office, rather than in a Departments, although so late in accomplish- University. A law school was established ment, was in accordance with the original because it was thought that there the law plan drafted by the first Superintendent of could best be learned. Public Instruction in Michigan. It is a sig- Profess'r Bryce, in his " American Com- nificant fact, which has been commented on monwealth," comments on "the extraordinary more than once, that the establishment of excellence of many of the law schools" of the Schools of Law and of Medicine con- the United States, and adds: " I do not know tributed much to a rapid increase in the if there is anything in which America has number of students in the Department of advanced more beyond the mother country Literature, Science, and the Arts. than in the provision she makes for legal If we keep in mind the ideas which have education." The compliment is not unde- prevailed until recently in reference to legal served; for every one knows, who knows education, we shall be impressed by the wise anything about the history of legal educa- almost foresight and liberal views of the men who tion, that England has been behind HeinOnline -- 1 Green Bag 190 1889 Hicgaul Universily Law SC/ool. '9' every civilized country of the world in awak- was represented there. The fact is, and has ening to a realization of the fact of the ne- been for centuries, that in most of the coun- cessity and advantages of schools of law. tries of Europe men enter the profession of Even Japan has a law school in which a the law through the Universities. But as thousand students are to-day engaged in recently as 1850, when Professor Amos came studying the English system of jurispru- to the chair of English Law in the famous old dence. Upon the continent of Europe the University of Cambridge, the class of Eng- law school has always been deemed indis- lish Law in that institution could be counted pensable. Bologna, now the most ancient on the fingers of one hand. It consisted of THOMAS M. COOLEY. University in existence, was originally purely one A.M., one A.B., and two undergraduates. a law university, and law so predominated Of course the Inns of Court constituted a there that students of arts and of medicine species of law school, and date back to an were admitted only by enrolment in the law early period in English history, - that of Lin- university, and on swearing obedience to its coln's Inn to the time of Edward II., and officers. Padua was likewise originally a that of Gray's Inn to the time of Edward 111. law university, as were all the other Italian They were moreover well attended, as we Universities with the possible exception of learn from Chancellor Fortescue. But they Salerno and perhaps Perugia. In France, were a poor apology for the modern law Orleans, Bourges, and Poitiers are said to school as we know it in the United States have been tdistinctively law universities; or as it is known in Germany. In the Inns while Paris was distinctively a philosophi- of Court young men "dined " themselves cal and theological university, although law into the profession. Within the last ten HeinOnline -- 1 Green Bag 191 1889 192 The Green Bag. Walker. Judge years there has been a marked change of V. Campbell, and Charles I. other gentle- sentiment in England in the matter of legal Cooley lived at Ann Arbor ; the Ar- education, and law has now gained a proper men resided in Detroit, coming to Ann lectures. recognition in the English Universities. bor from time to time to deliver their If the United States are distinguished The Faculty organized on Monday, Oct. 3, dean, and from England in the excellence of their 1859, by electing Judge Campbell -for had not at that time law schools, it is nevertheless true that Mr. Cooley he bench of the Supreme the American law school is comparatively been advanced to the Faculty. On the a late development. 'The American lawyer, Court -Secretary of the Campbell de- trained under the English system of juris- afternoon of that day Judge in the Presby- prudence and familiar with the English ideas livered the opening address and the as to legal education, for a long time thought terian Church, before the law'class taking for his theme " The that law could best be learned in a law office. public generally, time the Law The result was that medical and divinity Study of the Law." At that own, and the schools both won their place before law School had no building of its schools were able to gain recognition.