FIGHTING THE INSECTS 



H. Wigmore, Dean of the Law College at Northwestern Uni- 

 versity, and the author of "Wigmore on Evidence," a work 

 considered by many the soundest and most brilliant law book 

 pubhshed in a generation. The Major stopped me, saying that 

 he wanted to see me and would join me below-stairs in a few 

 minutes. 



A year or more before, a rather sumptuous volume had ap- 

 peared, the title of which I do not recollect for the moment, 

 but which was supposed to be a tribute from American scholars 

 to French scholarship. This work, compiled by Wigmore, was 

 published before the United States went into the war, and proved 

 an incentive to American students to go to France for post- 

 graduate work, since the German universities were closed to 



them. 



When I picked up the book at the Club, I was delighted with 

 its appearance, and prepared to enthuse over its contents. Ideal- 

 istically, such a book should be written with inspired enthusiasm 

 by men intimately acquainted with France and the French, as 

 well as all departments of French scholarship. But it was dis- 

 tinctly disappointing. In spite of the introduction by President 

 Eliot of Harvard, some of the chapters were not sound, and in 

 those about which I had any real knowledge the writers were 

 semi-ignorant. They wrote without any enthusiasm, and made 

 many blunders, and the effect produced on me was that any 

 one of the men in my office, after a little reading and a free 

 use of "Minerva" could have done rather better. On the spur 

 of the moment I had sat down and written Wigmore a letter, 

 which he never answered— he was awaiting his time to talk 

 to me about it. 



So in a few minutes he came down and told me all about the 

 work, explaining the many difficulties he had encountered, 

 especially in the selection of scientific men. He accounted for 



[272] 



I 



