How the Law School Fails: A Polemic

Abstract

To the committed empiricist, the pages which follow will seem no more credible than a child's tortured dream. Yet even the committed empirist must recognize that for the time being at least there are areas inaccessible to him, areas where what passes for knowledge must be no more than a network of intuitions and theories dimly grasped. The current "malaise" at the Law School is a subject which lies in such an area. Faculty and student body seem equally affected, but neither seems able to express its feelings in any way except indirectly, in moments of bitterness or disillusionment, in lethargy or a febrile verbalism. It is perhaps because of this elusive quality of the subject that I find myself unable to approach it in any other tone than that of moral exhortation.