Of paramount importance is a genuine, vital interest in the intellectual world and training in thinking and expression above the acquisition of mere knowledge. In this process the significance of the great teacher and ultimately of self-education as being the soundest kind of education is repeatedly stressed. Lawyers are not likely to lose sight of the fact that in the last analysis everything depends on the individual and that it is the individual who must train and discipline himself. Intelligence cannot be taught, but it can be acquired. Interest, capacity to work, and health are all indispensable aids in the process, but sound habits and a wise use of time are no less necessary to that end.
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Important also are such extracurricular activities as develop capacity for independent thought and action, especially when they involve training in expression. As Judge Charles E. Clark of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, formerly Dean of Yale Law School, aptly put it:
These extracurricular activities may often have more vitality than the college work itself, especially if the latter is soft and limited to lectures. Those positions requiring responsibility, executive ability and leadership are of course the most important.
One law school professor set forth a list of skills and interests a student should bring to law school and the subjects that may help him, both of which are well worth quoting:
There is little use trying to prescribe subject-matter for acquisition of such skills and interests. It is a matter of temperament and teaching. And the skills and interests are more important than any subject-matter. But we should prefer somewhat to have the stuff on which a student exercised himself while acquiring the skills, include:
- Descriptive (not theoretical) economics, and economic history;
- Political, social, and constitutional history, first, of the United States; second, of some other people or culture. And practice in the interpretation of documentary evidence seems particularly desirable;
- Some sociological study of modern America. Or some technological study of it. Or both;
- Some quantitative science or art; physics, or quantitative chemistry, statistical operations in economic or sociological data, or (as in accounting) in dollars.
- Art, or literature;
- Psychology, or heredity, or anthropo-geography;
- i.e., at least one of the disciplines which indicate the limits of what manipulation of, or by the environment, can accomplish;
- Descriptive politics. Not "political science."
It is to be noted that the extracurricular game of jockeying for office and the like will often bring a man farther than study of this list of subject-matter, when it comes to seeing how and why courts do what they do, and what to do about it. In short, a lawyer must know people and his environment and how to cope with both. Books and thinking are fine-but they are not enough.
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Some of the subjects in a curriculum may sound distasteful to some students. They may even bring to mind Mr. Dooley's dictum, "It doesn't make much difference what you study, so long as you don't like it." It should be borne in mind that while the leaders of the profession, and lawyers generally, are opposed to prescribing required subjects for the prospective law student, they nevertheless realize the necessity for discipline in accurate thinking, in clear expression and in a sound understanding of our physical, social, intellectual, and moral environment as well as a deep knowledge of human nature. It is for the student himself to decide in the light of all this advice whether he is willing to pay the price in time and effort that these studies demand in order to become a lawyer. An even more difficult decision to make is whether the instructors in his college in each recommended subject are capable of arousing his enthusiasm. And most difficult of all is the problem of whether or not to pursue a recommended subject even with an uninspiring instructor.
If the student, having been fully advised to take a particular course, fails to do so, the burden is then on him to use his own ingenuity to make up his lack. "It is superstition that is all too persistent," to quote Professor Zechariah Chal'ee Jr., "to suppose that it is necessary to take a course in a subject to know something about it. A chief count in the indictment against college education is that it fails to develop a desire for reading books in fields outside the courses." Intellectual fire is more likely to be kindled in a subject freely chosen, under proper advice, than in a compulsory course.
In all of his work the prospective law student will do well to keep in mind the wisdom of rare old Ben Jonson: It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make man better be.
Knowledge is only worthwhile when it has been assimilated and thus made usable. The capacity to work hard, the ability to think straight, training in expressing oneself well both orally and in writing, the understanding of and sympathy with people one meets, a social consciousness, a keen interest in life — all are more important than any amount of knowledge. The student will do well to seek out instructors who promise him training and inspiration along with knowledge rather than knowledge for its own sake.
Confirmation from the Elder Statesmen
We are living in a revolutionary age. The velocity of social change is greater than in any earlier era of English or American history and this has inevitably put a great strain on the law. The relation of the individual and the state, especially, is in a condition of flux. The period in our history that most nearly compares with present times is the era of the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the English Industrial Revolution of a century and three quarters ago. The lawyers of this earlier revolutionary period, whether as judges or as statesmen, showed remarkable wisdom and skill in adapting the law of their day to a rapidly changing economic, political, social, and intellectual environment. Their success has been unrivaled in any other period of the long history of the common law, largely by reason of their boundless confidence in facing their problems and coping with them by their powers of reasoning. In their reasoning they did not neglect the wisdom of the past; they were great believers in a liberal education. It is therefore not without significance to note that the advice given to law students by the great judges and statesmen of what is often referred to as the Golden Age of the Law parallels that given by the leaders of the profession today.
Conclusions
Our analysis of the work of the lawyer and our description of the method of studying law will suggest to the alert student the subjects that should be studied in college, the faculties that should be trained and the interest that should be aroused in preparation for the life of a lawyer. The task is one that demands the best efforts of the prospective lawyer. It calls for much more than mere book knowledge, although the lawyer, more than most other professions, relies on books. It requires genuine capacity for thinking, ability to master facts, deep knowledge of human nature, familiarity with his environment in the broadest sense of the term, ability to express his thoughts and feelings, and knowledge of himself acquired from the practice of self-criticism.
If the future lawyer finds, as he doubtless will, that he cannot master every study recommended, he will naturally first pursue those subjects which are obviously fundamental and less subject to change, in preference to those which are constantly shifting. He will give due consideration, too, to taking those courses for which there are great teachers available, realizing that there are many subjects that he can well teach himself rather than rely on a second-rate instructor.
Whatever studies he elects, he will endeavor, lawyer-like, to go so far as possible to the original sources rather than accept anyone's, even an expert's, opinions. He will struggle and inevitably learn to think for himself. He will aim to achieve not only exact knowledge but, even more important, correlated knowledge, leading to an understanding of the fundamentals of each subject he studies. He will strive for grasp and comprehension and hope that his efforts may be rewarded by insight.
As between the desire for knowledge and the necessity of training his faculties, he will place the emphasis on training. Knowledge inevitably comes to the trained mind. And he will realize that the test of both knowledge and training will ultimately be his ability to put them to the use of the community in which he lives.
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