4544. LAWYERS, Education of.—[continued].
I have long lamented the
depreciation of law science. The opinion
seems to be that Blackstone is to us what the
Alkoran is to the Mahometans, that everything
which is necessary is in him; and what
is not in him is not necessary. I still lend my
counsel and books to such young students as
will fix themselves in the neighborhood.
Coke's Institutes and reports are their first,
and Blackstone their last book, after an intermediate
course of two or three years. It is
nothing more than an elegant digest of what
they will then have acquired from the real
fountains of the law. Now, men are born
scholars, lawyers, doctors; in our day this was
confined to poets.—
To John Tyler. Washington ed. v, 524.
Ford ed., ix, 276.
(M.
1810)
