New-York tribune., 1902-01-18

professors and instructors Of Yale University,
and issued in connection with the bicentennial
anniversary "as a partial indication of the char
scter of the studies in which the university
teachers are engaged" 1t offers some admirable
illustrations of the special activities of the Yale
Law School and its faculty. 1t is not text
book for the profession, but outline SKETCH"
ana essentially, as Professor Baldwin says in
his introduction. book for the general reader,
intended 10 give him a clearer impression of
what the American people have accomplished in
Jurisprudence during the two centuries of Yale's
existence.
The legal profession hardly knew itself in the
Colonies before the seventeenth century Judicial
procedure had little form or regularity, and
there was scarcely enough litigation to give a
living to the lawyers. In fact lawyers
forbidden to practise for remuneration by early
enactments of several colonies. In the begin
ming Of the eighteenth century there were still
fewer educated lawyers than in the seventeenth
those of the coonists who had been trained in
the profession having died or returned to Eng
land. Harvard for long the sole source of
supply. BY the second half of the century the
tide turned, and there were some lawyers Of
scholarly attainments. Not till the colonsts had
gained their independence did the American
lawyer come to occupy a large place in the
public eye; for then the uses for him greatly
increased and, indeed, Professor Baldwin men
lions the belief that there were more copies of
Blackstone's Commentaries sold during the
seventeenth century in America than in Eng
land.
National independence first brought American
Jurisprudence TO a measure of independence,
and TO the development of the common law of
England which the colonists brought with them
and on which they founded the fabric of their
own laws. In constitutional law America pro-
with did
sources England, the original source of most
Of our Jurisprudence failed US and 1t was by
lhe power of John Marshall that its lines were
marked out. In this, in other directions, 1t
has been true. Professor Baldwin points out,
that law must reflect the political and economic
views Of the State for which it speaks. An
eminent English scholar has remarked that
under government of laws not men, Ameri-
cans have come to be more thoroughly imbued
with legal ideas than any other people known
TO history; and the constitutional guarantees of
individual right against the legislative and ex-
ecutive departments, through the judicial, have
shaped the lines of constitutional develop
rnent, in accordance with this characteristic
Through all these essays on different depart
Inents Of the law 1t is seen how the tendency
has been always toward greater simplicity,
greater adaptabity to modern needs greater
consonance with modern ideas 1t is most OBJ
the law. Thus. in Deeds the American form
the result of conditions peculiar to the coun-
try. where titles were simple and families
young; and the Ella borations of the English prac-
tice requiring special training for conveyancers
were not needed. AS Professor Beers says in his
chapter Real Property:
While mems gifts differ, the average Ameri-
can lawyer, whatever his line Of practice, has
in all States been able to draw easily the aver
age deed, and without special study aptitude
or training, all but the very exceptional
The antiquated English pleadings were more
and more fastened upon American law during
the eighteenth century; but the first half of the
nineteenth century saw breaking of the chains
of tradition, in which New-York State took the
lead. under the guidance Of David Dudley
Field, in the adoption of the code of civil pro-
cedure. Pleading stripped Of most of it's
forms and all its technicalities." Other States
gradually followed, and then England. in 1878,
initiated the example set across the ocean. What
seems to-day like the minor matter of a seal and
Al the necessity Of its attachment to legal docu-
81 nnents illustrates strikingly the emancipation
of the law from purely formal matters, and its
tendency toward harmony with the ideas of the
times Speaking OF contracts, Professor Foster
writes:
In some States the of private seals is alb
soutely abolished, and in others, though the
form is still preserved, a simple scrawl is suf-
Inerly employed. The progress Of opinion in the
matter of sealed instruments is well illustrated
in case Of corporations. At common law the
contracts Of corporations were required to be
unGer seal In the absence of charter
statutory provisions to the contrary, a corpora
tion need seal only where an individual
would be required TO use one.
In real estate transfers. too, the seal, once so
important, has been abolished in many States.
And the common laws view of the SEAL that it
was of so high import that it could be dis
charged only by another sealed instrument has
in most OF the States been entirely dropped
The improvement of the status of married wom-
en- before the law is another condition that has
been brought about largely within the period
discussed in this book-also a movement in ac-
cord with the advancing view of society. The
right Of a wife to the affection and society Of
her husband as of the husband to hers, and of a
mother in case of the fathers death, to the
services Of her child; wife's control of her real
property and her power to make contracts and
TO dispose of her belongings by will are among
the most significant matters in which the law
has gone hand in hand with the enlightenment
Of public opinion.
lone Of the grandest legal achievements of
the present century is what Professor Watrous
in his chapter on @'Torts' calls the ABANDON
rrent Of the old common law rule that no ac-
tion could lie for causing the death OF a human
being. A man manned or reduced to imbeclhty
by railroad accident might recover Tor dam
ages. but II he was killed his family, though it
might be ruined, had no remedy This reform
came from England where it wrought by
an act passed in 1896 but was promptly followed
nv similar acts in the United States, all agree
ing in withholding the sum recovered from the
assets of the estate, where it would be sub
iac- IN the claims of creditors, and giving il