Yale Law School

Abstract

This is to be a sketch of the Yale Law School of to-day. While it is to touch but lightly upon its history, it is to outline its present condition, its work and methods. The Law Department of Yale has shared in the general prosperity of the University and has to-day more Students than ever before in its career, one hundred and seventy-five names now standing upon its rolls. The present decade has witnessed a great growth and development in matters of legal education generally. The superiority of law school to office training is no longer seriously questioned. The office, of course, affords a practical drill that is indispensible Lnd mhst sooner or later be secured; but the change in methods of transaction of legal -business, the hurry and rush of modern professional life, the genesis of the legal clerk, stenographer and type-writer, have crowded out the student and taken away his best opportunities for study. The preliminary education, lying at the base, and necessary not only to render the office training useful but even to prevent it from being actually hurtful and misleading, is best secured in the school. There the presence of fellow students stimulates a generous emulation, and trained teachers of law, give their best efforts to promote the learner's advancemeni. He is there conducted by gradual stages from the simple to the complex; from mere theory to practical application to actual facts.