University of Virginia Library

II. The Law Alumni

THE LAW SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

By William Minor Lile, LL.B., LL.D.
Dean of the Department of Law

In the University catalogue of 1849-50 there appeared the following
announcement: "The year 1850 being the twenty-fifth since the organization
of the University, the ceremonies, it is expected, will be of more than
common interest, and an unusually large concourse of alumni and friends of
the institution will probably assemble on this solemn occasion." History
does not record how solemn the occasion proved to be. But as it occurred
before the adoption of the XVIII Amendment, and during a lull in the city
of Richmond's clamor for at least a portion of the University, we are entitled
to wonder why the catalogue-man anticipated an event of such solemnity.

Nothing appears in the program for this Centennial Year likely to lead
your thoughts along funereal lines, unless it be the announcement that you
are to be addressed, at this solemn hour of three o'clock, on a sultry summer
afternoon, and on a topic that one would not voluntarily select for a holiday
diversion. By the time, therefore, that the present exercises are concluded
possibly you may agree that in one feature at least we have matched the
forecast of the reunion of 1850.

The privilege of welcoming so large a body of the sons of the Law
School—the largest number ever assembled within our walls—is the most
grateful of the many happy experiences of my twenty-eight years of life as a
law teacher.

Responsive to the official writ, you have come from the seven seas and
all the remote parts adjacent thereto—and on behalf of my colleagues and

myself I bid you a right royal welcome. If you will present your writs, in
person or by mail, I shall be glad to endorse a proper discharge thereon.

Some of you hold diplomas antedating my own; others were my contemporaries
in the Law School; while still others represent that interesting
interval when your speaker was performing, in a neighboring bailiwick, those
marvelous professional stunts with which every student since 1893 is familiar.
But I note with special interest, and with a kindling heart, that the
larger number of those before me are my own sons in the Law, to whom it
is indeed an honored privilege to extend a father's greeting.

No daughters have as yet graced the family circle, but they are well on
the way, and perhaps our next family reunion will be graced by many sisters
and daughters—fair Portias, "fresh from brawling courts and dusty purlieus
of the law."

The lives of the law teacher and the practitioner, are in strong contrast.
The essential qualities and aims of the two, in some respects similar, are, on
the whole, widely different. The practitioner spends most of his life as a
partisan, in the endeavor, not to ascertain what sound principle is applicable
to a given state of facts, with the reason upon which it rests, but by astute
argument to qualify or distinguish the basic principle to suit some special
case in hand. He has studied disconnected propositions of a particular
topic as applicable to some narrow state of facts, rather than the field of the
topic in its entirety, or with attention to the relation of one branch of it with
another. He conceives of the law not so much as a science as a collection of
isolated rules; and he has less concern whether his contentions be sound or
unsound than whether he can establish them in a given case.

The teacher, on the other hand, must work out his subject in its entirety
and with judicial poise reach his conclusions regardless of consequences.
He must seek the truth and that only. He does not deal with concrete facts,
nor with living personalities. John Doe and Richard Roe constitute his
clientele, and Blackacre and Whiteacre his horizon. For him the fine points
must give away to broad and basic principles—and kindred but disjointed
propositions must be brought together and correlated. Day after day he
speaks to the same uncritical, and often uncaring, audience, on the same
subject—to be repeated year after year, with a new but equally apathetic
assembly. The teacher participates in no warm contests on the hustings or
at the bar. For him there is no gaudium certaminis. He wins no victories
to kindle his enthusiasm, and loses no cases to teach him his errors. His
compensation is the same whether he works or plays. And to whatever
heights he may attain in his profession, the stipend of his earlier days, pitiful
enough even at that stage of his career, tends to remain as static as the
countenance of the Sphinx. One annual joy, however, is his—he is able to

A Writ of Summons

twirl his thumbs in defiance of the income tax collector, and he hoards no
surplus wealth to tempt him to invest in forbidden commodities. He leads
a sort of monastic existence, apart from the madding crowd. The newspapers
do not report his lectures, howsoever learned—or howsoever illumined
by recitals of his own prowess at the bar, or by anecdotes, culled from
his well-thumbed repertory.

The consequence is, that the law teacher finds that his most difficult
task is the maintenance of that enthusiasm for his work, without which he
is a mere wooden man on the rostrum. A burning zeal is the one essential
of the teacher as it is of the advocate. But the keen enthusiasm of the latter
needs no conscious effort to quicken or sustain it. The flame of his passion
keeps pace with his professional growth, and is the natural outcome of his
daily routine. On the other hand, from causes mentioned, it is only by constant
and persistent effort of his own, with rare aid from without, that the
teacher may hope to emulate the zeal that inspires his brothers of the bar.
He may not enthuse to-day and brood to-morrow. Six days out of the seven
he must stand upon his retired rostrum, aloof from his fellows, and do his
task with a glad heart and a joyous countenance.

If this comparison has created the impression on your minds that my
colleagues and I are unhappy in our roles, and are disposed to complain of
our tasks, you have misunderstood me. On the contrary, not one of us would
exchange places with you; for in the quiet of our academic shades we find
much to compensate us, and to teach us that even the life of a law professor
is well worth the living. Our interest in and close association with the fine
body of youth that with each recurrent season gathers within our walls—
in my opinion the finest assembly of young American manhood to be found
in the college world—blinds us to the truth that our tethers are limited and
grow shorter with the passing years, and depicts life to us in somewhat the
same roseate hue as our young scholars see it.

Nor must you alumni of the Law School forget that howsoever high
the places you occupy at the bar or on the bench, in the depths of our own
hearts we claim something of the credit. You and the best of you are but
our creations! No—we have not grown weary of our tasks, and an army
with banners could scarcely drive us from our places!

I have thus momentarily drawn aside the curtain, and given you a
glance at the inner life of the law teacher. This, for the possible interest
that you might find in this glimpse of precincts removed from common observation,
but chiefly that you might understand the depth of the welcome
already extended to you. You cannot know what a delight—what a genuine
inspiration—it is to us to greet you here, at any time, singly or in groups, but

especially on this our Centennial Anniversary. You could not know, except
from my telling of it, how hard it is for us to keep our enthusiasm alive.
Your presence here—this renewed intercourse after the lapse of the years—
your gracious greetings—the records that you have made as sons of the Law
School, standing out in plainer colors now that we see you face to face—
have given to each of us of the teaching staff a new spirit for our duties, and
a renewed ambition to deserve our places as teachers in the Law School,
and to justify your continued confidence.

It has seemed to me that it might not be inappropriate on an occasion
such as this, which comes but once in a hundred years, briefly to rehearse to
you something of the history of the Law School, with very cursory mention
of those faithful men who, standing in our places, gave of their strength for
its upbuilding, and directed its policies in the earlier days.

It has been well said that institutions are the antitheses of men who
erect them. The former, properly nourished, escape the infirmities of age,
and grow stronger as their years increase. Such has been the history of the
Law School. At the close of its century of life, it finds itself the fruitful
mother of many devoted sons—their numbers increasing with the passing
of the years, and her powers of reproducing and nourishing her offspring
responding to the ever increasing demand.

Though the charter of the University was granted in 1819, it was not
until 1826 that the Law School was opened to students. At this period there
were few law schools in the country, and few or none had attracted many
students to their halls, or gained the confidence of the legal profession in
their methods and results. "Reading law" in the office of an experienced
practitioner was thought a more beneficial course of preparation for the bar
than that offered by the law school. The law office, rather than the law
school, was, therefore, the center of legal education. Nor was there any
American precedent for a law school erected, supported and governed by the
State.

Mr. Jefferson himself had received his legal training under Chancellor
Wythe, next to Marshall the most distinguished jurist that Virginia, or
indeed, America, had then, or has since, produced. Our Founder had also,
as a member of the Board of Visitors of William and Mary, had a part in
establishing the law school of William and Mary with Chancellor Wythe as
professor, and therefore appreciated the value of a law school training.

It may be assumed that his main purpose in establishing a chair of law
in the State University was to afford facilities for legal training, superior to
the office method. But it was in keeping with Mr. Jefferson's character and
temperament to hope that through the instrumentality of the Law School, in
addition to the technical training of candidates for the bar, a sound (i. e.,

a Jeffersonian) political philosophy might be disseminated among the rising
generation of the South. Thus we find him writing to James Madison, in
February, 1826:

How far short of the Founder's hope, as thus expressed, the Law School
fell, may be inferred from the circumstance that Robert Toombs, of Georgia,
and Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, were both its products.

The first professor of law was John Tayloe Lomax, of Fredericksburg—
Francis Walker Gilmer, originally chosen, having been prevented by ill
health, followed shortly afterwards by death, from entering upon the duties
of the chair. After Gilmer's death, the position, along with the presidency
of the University, was offered to William Wirt, but the offer was declined.
The course covered but a single year. The textbooks used were (Mr.
Jefferson's advice notwithstanding) Blackstone's Commentaries; Cruise's
Law of Real Property; Selwyn's Abstract of the Law of Nisi Prius; and Maddock's
Chancery.

The complaint of insufficient salaries at the University, now so vociferous,
appears to be but a prolonged echo from those early days—as Lomax
resigned after four years of cultivating the law "on a little oatmeal," to
accept a circuit judgeship, which offered a larger compensation. To those
familiar with the history of the salaries of circuit judges in Virginia, res ipsa
loquitur.

Lomax was succeeded in 1830 by John A. G. Davis, grandfather of
John Staige Davis now of the Medical Faculty. Professor Davis held the
chair until 1840, when he was killed by a riotous student. For the single
year following, the chair was filled by the temporary appointment of N. P.
Howard. In 1841, Henry St. George Tucker, who had been President of the

Virginia Court of Appeals, a position which he had filled with singular distinction,
was appointed as Davis's successor—resigning from ill health, four
years later. In this brief period, however, he left the indelible impress of his
genius, and builded better than he knew, in establishing the Honor System,
of which he was the moving spirit—the most splendid inheritance that Virginia's
University possesses to-day. Tucker was succeeded by John B.
Minor, whose remarkable career, as teacher and author, is familiar not only
to hundreds of those still living who had the good fortune to sit at his feet,
but to the present generation of lawyers throughout the country.

Professor Minor held the chair for fifty years—1845-1895—and gave a
prestige to the Law School which made it nationally famous. The tone with
which he endowed it, the standards that he set for it, the devoted spirit that
he exemplified toward it, have been the inspiration and the goal of his successors.

In 1851, the Department of Law, then known as the "School" of Law—
in accordance with the then general plan of designating each of the several
subjects in the University curriculum as a "school"—was divided into two
schools, a second chair was created, and James P. Holcombe became adjunct
professor—promoted to full professor in 1854. Holcombe resigned in 1861,
on the outbreak of the Civil War, to become a member of the Confederate
Congress. After the Civil War, Stephen O. Southall succeeded to Holcombe's
chair, and on his death in 1883, James H. Gilmore was named as
his successor, resigning in 1897.

In 1893, chiefly with the purpose of relieving Professor Minor of the
heavy burden which for 50 years he had borne with never-flagging zeal and
tenacity, but which had become too onerous for his advanced years, William
Minor Lile was added to the teaching staff as a full professor, and the work
of the law school was equally divided among these three—Minor, Gilmore
and Lile. The work assigned to the new incumbent was taken in equal
proportions from that of the two existing chairs. This division left Professor
Minor with but two subjects, Real Property and Pleading and Practice
at Law (volumes II and IV of his famous Institutes). To ease this
burden, still further, his son, now Professor Raleigh Colston Minor, was
named as his Assistant. The son took over the Pleading and Practice, leaving
to Professor Minor, for the last two years of his life, the single subject
of Real Property, with two lecture periods a week. Those who remember
the strong will and self-sacrificing spirit of the great teacher, need not be
told that this effort to ease his latter days was not without passionate protest
from him.

Following Professor Minor's death, in 1895, Walter D. Dabney was
appointed full professor, with Professor Raleigh C. Minor as Adjunct,—
Professor Dabney succeeding to the course in Pleading and Practice, and

Adjunct Professor Minor to that in Real Property—and to these two were
assigned other courses added to the curriculum in 1895, coincident with the
extension of the course from one to two years.

On Professor Dabney's untimely death in 1899, Professor Charles A.
Graves, of Washington and Lee University, was appointed his successor.

The inception of the three years' course, in 1909-10, called for an enlargement
of the teaching staff—now composed of Professors Lile, Graves, Minor,
Armistead M. Dobie and George B. Eager, both of the latter graduates of
the Law School.

The appointment of Edwin A. Alderman as first President of the University,
in 1904, was followed by a complete reorganization of the several
departments, and the erection of minor faculties—each department presided
over by a dean. This office in the Law School has been held by Professor
Lile since that date.

The session of 1826 opened with 26 students. The average attendance
down to the outbreak of the Civil War was approximately 60. During the
four years of the Civil War, 31 students were enrolled. For the period between
the close of the Civil War and 1895, the approximate average per
session was 110. Since then, the enrollment has steadily increased year by
year. For the present session, the number of matriculates is 310, from 30
states.

Originally there were no prescribed entrance requirements, and the
minimum age for admission of students to any department of the University
was sixteen years. While graduation in Law was provided for, no degree
appears to have been offered until 1842, during the régime of Professor
Tucker. From 1842-1865, the catalogue designates the title of the degree
as Bachelor of "Laws"; but, beginning with 1865, the term Bachelor of
"Law" appears;—the plural designation re-appeared in 1905, and is still
retained. It was also during Professor Tucker's incumbency that a short-lived
statute, admitting graduates of the Law School to practice without the
necessity of a license from the judges, was enacted. This statute was repealed
in the Code Revisal of 1849. Tradition accredits the repeal to the
insistence of Professor Minor, who preferred that his students should pass
the same examination for admission to the bar as was required of other
candidates. The wisdom of this policy has been vindicated by its quite
general acceptance by the profession, and particularly by the standard law
schools of the country. Knowledge on the part of the teacher that the
results of his instruction are to be submitted to the acid test of the bar
examiners, who are in daily touch with the law in its most concrete form, is a
manifest incentive to the teacher, and a safeguard against loose pedagogical
methods and practices.

The important part that the Law School has played in the University
itself is indicated in the circumstance that out of 5571 degrees conferred by
all the departments since organization, 2051 have been degrees from the
Law School—or 37% of the total.

The Law School has never been, like the average state law school, a
merely local one, for the production of local lawyers—but from earliest days
has drawn its patronage from all parts of the United States. It has educated
thousands of young men for the legal profession. The very large
number of these who have occupied the highest places in the states and
nation, has illustrated the fine quality of the spirit that the School inspires,
and the soundness of the instruction that it affords.

When the information first came to your ears a year ago that we were
preparing to open the doors of Jefferson's masculine University to women—
and admitting them even within the sacred precincts of the Law School—
you doubtless wondered why, and recorded your mental, if not written,
protest. But it has been done—not because we of the Law School believed
the law a fit profession for the mothers of the coming generations, but for
the same reason that the gods gave the frogs a king—they clamored (I dare
not say croaked) for it so vociferously. Voters as they now are (the women,
not the frogs), their insistence and persistence—their crying aloud night and
day without surcease—their strident threats of forcing their way in by the
legislative door, and therefore on their own terms—convinced us that discretion
was the better part of valor. We surrendered on very honorable
terms, magnanimously dictated by ourselves. These terms are that the
woman applicant for admission to the law school shall be twenty years of age,
and the holder of a baccalaureate degree—or else twenty-two years of age and
having completed two years of standard college work. These requirements
are thought sufficient to secure proper maturity of mind and manners, and
the desired seriousness of purpose—and to exclude the airyfairy Lilians as
a disturbing element in our peculiarly and traditionally virile surroundings.

Those of you whose college careers antedate modern entrance requirements,
may be interested in the announcement that, at present, candidates
for admission to the Law School must have completed one year of college
work, in addition to graduation from a high school—and that with the
session of 1922-1923, an additional year of college work will be required.
This may mean that in the course of a few years the entrance standard will
be raised to the requirement of a baccalaureate degree. The existing entrance
requirements at Virginia are considerably short of the standard
exacted by the best professional and pedagogical thought of the country,
and we are already lagging behind most of the standard law schools in this

respect. A number of these already require a baccalaureate degree or its
equivalent. My own experience of twenty-eight years as a law teacher
convinces me that in keeping down our entrance standards at Virginia, we
have unwittingly done great injustice to the youth of the South, and through
them to the legal profession. My observation is that the average youth
contemplating the study of law, or of any other profession, will be content to
enter upon his professional studies with the minimum of preparation required
by the school of his choice. He is not to blame for assuming that
the wise heads who admit him to the Law School with merely a high school
preparation, are expressing to him the opinion that no further preparation is
necesary to fit him for a distinguished career at the bar. The result in our
own Law School has been disastrous. Unfledged youths, fresh from the
high schools, the parents of many of whom were abundantly able to finance
them through a complete academical and professional course, have rushed
into the Law School, with their professional ambitions as immature as their
high school minds. The result has been a veritable slaughter of the innocents.
Under such standards, an entering class of 100 would produce a
graduating class of approximately 30 or 40—with the majority of these
made up of men with college training.

Our medical friends have far outstripped us, in spite of our aristocratic
scorn of them as parvenus in the professional field. As lawyers, we trace our
ancestry back a thousand years—whereas, as a scientific profession, this new
rival was born within the recollection of some of us who are not old men.
Forty years ago in Virginia, any quack might call himself doctor, and serve
all patients rash enough to employ him—and this without let or hindrance
from the State. But, led by the well-educated members of their profession,
their standards have already been raised to a point which we lawyers of
Virginia can scarcely hope to reach in a generation. The result has been that
medicine and surgery have made greater advances in the last forty years
than in all the preceding ages.

I cannot refrain from taking this opportunity of reminding you that
one of the chief reasons why legal standards have lagged, is due to the
lawyers themselves—who, as pointed out recently by the Carnegie Foundation,
and as known to every observant lawyer who has attended sessions of
our legislatures and meetings of bar associations—lose no opportunity of
blocking efforts within the profession to raise legal standards. "Look at
me," exclaim these blind guides, "and think what the State would have
lost had your high standards excluded me from the Law School, and from
the bar of which I am such a shining ornament."

Perhaps a word about our teaching methods may not be out of place.
We still use the old fashioned text-book and lecture system, supplemented

by the use of illustrative cases. With most of the other law schools of the
country now thoroughly wedded to the so-called Case System, we find ourselves
almost in a class to ourselves. We are thought of, and not infrequently
referred to by our contemporaries, as old-fogyish, and out of date.
But we have held to our own methods—not from ignorance of the virtues
of the other system, but from deliberate choice. . The argument in favor of
the one or the other system is too long to be presented here at length, even
on the assumption that you would be interested in following it. I think it
may be summed up in the statement that the main purpose of the Case
System, as its disciples confess, is not so much to teach legal principles, as to
cultivate the student's reasoning faculties—surely a most desirable end.
Under this method the lecture room is converted into a sort of debating
society, of which the instructor is the leader and interlocutor. A half-dozen
or more cases, previously assigned, constitute the basis of the debate. The
whole hour is not infrequently consumed in the discussion of a single point,
or of a single case from the assignment. Normally, the assigned cases not
reached during the hour are passed over, a new assignment is made, and a
new debate held at the next period—the student being left to work up the
ignored cases as best he may. It is heresy to limit a lively debate in the
interest of economy of time. The point or points actually discussed are
thus thoroughly ventilated and impressed upon the student—or upon such
of them as participate in the debate, or take accurate notes thereof. An
entire lecture period may thus be devoted to the discussion of Benjamin
Butler's famous point whether the key to a man's shop is personalty or realty
and therefore the subject or not the subject of larceny—or the distinction
between a demurrer to the declaration and a demurrer to the evidence. The
natural tendency of the system is to develop a race of case lawyers. But the
most serious objection is the slowness with which the course goes forward,
and the gaps that the method must leave in the continuity and completeness
of the topics pursued. If the student had six years to devote to his law
school course, instead of three, the case method might prove ideal.

Our theory is that a large part of the body of the law rests upon no
particular reason, but is conventional, or may we not call it arbitrary?
This cannot be deduced by any course of reasoning howsoever subtle or
astute. The mere statement of the rule, with a practical illustration, is its
best exposition. One need not read an opinion of several pages to learn that
a contract must have a valuable consideration, or that the agreement must
be mutual; or that an infant is not bound by his general contracts, but
ordinarily is liable for his torts; or that an indorser's liability is conditioned
on the taking of the proper steps on dishonor of the paper; or that a corporation
cannot lawfully exercise a power not conferred by its charter; or
that the plea of the statute of limitations, or the statute of parol agreements,

is personal to the defendant. These illustrations might be indefinitely
multiplied. And considering the law of procedure, whether under the
written or the unwritten law, substantially the whole of it consists of conventional
rules, which are to be mastered only by memorizing them.

These considerations, with the further consideration that the student's
time in the law school is limited, and that under our old-fashioned methods
the student obtains a complete bird's eye view of the fundamentals of each
of his topics—succinctly stated and generally illustrated by the text itself,
and by the case-book, and always by the instructor himself—make us
content with our own methods. Under our method the subject is presented
as a consistent whole, an impossible desideratum under the other system.
Where reasons exist, and serve to assist the student's understanding, they
are properly stressed,—indeed, these are more apt to be found in the textbook
than in the opinions. But equal stress is laid upon the student's acquisition
of fundamental principles for their intrinsic value, and upon his
remembering them just as he must learn and remember the letters of the
alphabet or the rules of Latin syntax.

The conclusions reached from our theoretical study of the two methods,
seem to us abundantly sustained by the results. The reasoning qualities
of our graduates are thoroughly well developed, though possibly not quite so
highly as under the other system. Our men go out into the profession not
only with excellent reasoning powers, but fully equipped with a knowledge
of fundamental legal principles. The further cultivation of their reasoning
powers, and their alertness and resourcefulness in debate, may well be postponed
to the succeeding thirty or forty years to be spent in the forensic
contests at the bar. The high positions taken by our graduates throughout
the country satisfies us that our Law School, however old-fashioned or conservative
in its methods, is accomplishing the purpose for which it exists—
to supply the bar and public stations with accomplished, well-rounded, highminded
and efficient lawyers.

I hope that this brief summary of our teaching methods and their results
may convince you that the University of Virginia has followed along
its own lines, in spite of the new cult of the case system, not ignorantly, nor
capriciously, but for reasons quite satisfactory to those of us charged with
the responsible duty of maintaining its standards and its prestige.

THE PLAN AND HISTORY OF THE VIRGINIA LAW REVIEW

By Randolph Caskie Coleman, '21, M.A., Editor

It was intended, as appears on the program, that I should make you a
speech on the Virginia Law Review, but after the splendid address of Dean

Lile, I feel that any attempt at a speech on my part would be feeble indeed.
So I am going to tell you very simply and briefly a few things about the law
journal published by the students.

On March 5, 1913 an informal meeting was held in Minor Hall for the
purpose of considering the publication of a legal journal by the students of
the Law School. It was unanimously resolved to form an association to
issue the journal, and on April 23, 1913 a permanent organization of the
Virginia Law Review Association, with an editorial board and a business
management, was effected.

The first number appeared in October, 1913, and since that time the
Review has been published monthly eight times a year from October to May,
except during the year of 1918-'19, when owing to the late opening of the
Law School on account of the war, publication was necessarily suspended.
The current issue, which through the courtesy of Mr. Minor's committee
will be presented to each of you at the end of the meeting, marks the close
of Volume VII.

The plan of the Virginia Law Review is quite similar to that of the
Harvard, the Columbia, and the other leading Reviews. But it differs from
many of them in one important respect, that is, in being exclusively a
student publication. Some of the Reviews are published principally by
Law Faculties, others have both Faculty and student editors, and still others,
though having only student editors, have Faculty representatives who supervise
all the work that is done. It is entirely in accord with the spirit and
traditions of Virginia, with its liberal measure of student control in all its
activities, that the Law Review should be published by the students alone.
To that fact, we believe, is largely attributable the self-reliance, the interest,
and the fine esprit de corps which have always characterized the editorial board.

Each number of the Review contains leading articles of general interest
to the profession, Notes, Recent Decisions, Book Reviews, and a Virginia
Section. The articles and Book Reviews are prepared by prominent members
of the bench and bar and by law teachers, while the Notes and Recent
Decisions are entirely the work of the editors.

This year saw the inauguration of the Virginia Section. Due to the
insistent demand of many of our readers, we thought it well, although retaining
our character as a general rather than a local journal, to establish
a section devoted exclusively to comment upon the Virginia decisions and
statutory changes. While the material for this department is largely furnished
by students, yet in order to make it a real forum for the discussion of
Virginia law, we have decided to invite contributions to it from the bar of
the State and bespeak for it your interest and support.

From the first the Review has set a high standard, and we believe we
can say without undue pride that to-day it has attained a foremost rank

among the established law journals of the country. Dean Lile and Professor
Graves place it just after the Harvard and Columbia Reviews and in the lead
of the others, and the superiority of those two, says Professor Graves, is to
be found in their leading articles, in obtaining which they possess distinct
advantages over us, and not in the student work. This classification reflects
the greater credit upon the Virginia Law Review when we consider that at
Harvard and Columbia the enrolment far exceeds ours and, furthermore,
that a baccalaureate degree is required for entrance to the Law School.

The editors of our Review have been constantly encouraged by commendatory
expressions and requests, some from quite a distance. The other
day we received an order for the Review and the back volumes from the
League of Nations Library at Geneva. Recently a letter came from Regina,
Saskatchewan, asking permission to reprint in the Canadian Law Times one
of our articles, which was described as "admirable and world-wide in its
application." Some time ago Professor Isaacs of Pittsburgh and Professor
Schaub of Harvard asked leave to reprint in their coming volume on Commercial
Law some extracts from the Review, adding the statement that "in
the present state of our legal science, the law journals are the repositories
of the best thought in commercial law as well as in the other fields of jurisprudence."
Dean Wigmore has complimented the Review highly, laying
particular stress upon its form and appearance. I trust you will pardon a
reference to these things when you realize that they are due not only to the
work of the present board, but to that of all our predecessors.

While this is the story of what the Review has accomplished, we feel
that it should do a great deal more. In fact it has reached a critical stage
in its life. The present vastly increased cost of printing has made it a most
difficult matter to finance the Review with the limited subscription list we
now have. This condition has affected all the Reviews more or less seriously
according to their circulation and resources from endowment or otherwise.
Recently the Columbia Law Review issued a statement that unless it could
secure a thousand additional subscribers it might have to suspend publication.
The Virginia Law Review unfortunately has no endowment and is entirely
dependent upon income from subscriptions and a few advertisements.

Is it worth while to keep it alive and vigorous? That depends upon the
service it is performing. To the student here it is a constant incentive, since
election to the board is based upon the quality of work done in the Law
School. To the editors it is a very valuable—some of them consider it the
most valuable—part of their legal training. To the Law School it is a means
of expression, without which the School would be somewhat inarticulate,
and at the same time the best type of advertisement. Going into the offices
of hundreds of lawyers, especially in Virginia and the South, it should give a
far clearer and more vivid idea of the character of the work in our Law School

than any mere catalogue. Can it be doubted that if the Review went to
several offices where it now goes to one it would be instrumental in bringing
many more students to this Law School? If a larger attendance is not to be
desired, then we would be enabled to take another forward step in the
important matter of raising our standards for admission.

But of what service is the Review to you, our alumni? It is a direct
means of communication, of contact with the Law School. It keeps alive
your interest and your memories. As it brings to those here, through the
articles you contribute, the results of your discoveries in the field of active
practice, so it carries to you the fruits of the researches of Faculty and
students in the legal laboratory of Minor Hall.

With your active coöperation the Review can not only perform this
service, but can steadily increase its usefulness. Without your support, it
will wither and die. There is no reason why we cannot make it the leading
organ of legal expression in the South, as the Harvard Law Review is in its
field, and a potent influence with our courts and legislators. It should be in
every way worthy of our great Law School, which for sound instruction in
fundamental principles we all believe to be second to none.

Our alumni are fully equal to the task. With your contributions in
articles embodying the product of your labors, your arguments in noteworthy
cases, your views on vital questions, and your suggestions as to
changes in our law and procedure, we could publish a Review that would
stand comparison in every respect with any law journal in the country.
So when you have the material for an interesting paper, prepare it and send
it to us, as well as discussions for the Virginia Section or Book Reviews.

In this way, through your loyal support in articles and subscriptions,
the Virginia Law Review can become a powerful, living force in our legal
world, informed with the noble spirit and standards of this institution, a
teacher of true doctrine in these times of false and dangerous theories, a
champion of what is sound and progressive in law and government. Thus
it can be made a source of just pride to the alumni and to the Law School.
The achievement of this purpose rests in principal measure with you, and
we have every confidence in your decision.