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LIBRARY—LEGAL BIBLIOGRAPHY.
The Law Department is provided with an excellent library, accommodated
by its own library room, separate from the general University
library, and located with special reference to the convenience of the
law students. While the student is not encouraged to venture for
himself into either cases or text-books, save for the purpose of verifying
or clearing up some proposition of the lecture, or for the preparation
of opinions or briefs, he is incited to familiarize himself not only
with the leading cases to which his attention is called, but especially
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latter subject, in addition to the instruction incidentally given, several
lectures are specially devoted. The student is taught that books are
the working tools of the lawyer, and that facility in handling them,
in the office and in the court-room, is an essential professional requirement.
He is instructed how to consult authorities, and to run down
cases; to distinguish doctrine from dicta; to analyze, criticise and compare
cases; to distinguish imperative authority from that which is
persuasive only; what the leading text-books are on the various subjects
taught, with some reference to their comparative merits; to prepare
briefs; and, generally, so to accustom himself to law books and
their use as to enable him to investigate, with intelligence and skill,
any question that may come within the scope of his duty at the bar.
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