362 HISTORY OF COMMON LAW 



everybody's subject. Over and above the history of the individual 

 doctrines studied in the several courses, there ought to be a course of 

 general reading. Our mistake hitherto seems to have been in sup- 

 posing that this must indispensably involve a course of lectures; and 

 few of us have cared to assume the cathedra of legal history. But 

 the essential thing is merely that the student should gain the broad- 

 ened view by a course of reading. "Reading maketh a full man." 

 This part of the education can be sufficiently tested by an examin- 

 ation. This course of historical reading should include something 

 interesting in the biographies and traditions of bench and bar. 

 The Duke of Marlborough said that he learned all the history he ever 

 knew out of Shakespeare's historical plays; certainly our modern 

 legal history can best be studied in the careers of Hardwicke, Mans- 

 field, Eldon, Erskine, Denman, Brougham, Campbell, Webster, and 

 Choate. The course, moreover, should not be seriously attempted 

 until the second and third years. John Morley has preached to us the 

 natural method of learning history backward. "I want to know," 

 he says, " what men did in the thirteenth century, not out of anti- 

 quarian curiosity, but because the thirteenth century is at the root of 

 what men think and do in the nineteenth. It is the present that we 

 seek to understand and to explain." Until the student has come into 

 the possession of some of the technicalities of trover and ejectment, 

 and has read some of the opinions of Mansfield and Eldon, it is use- 

 less to expect him to take a living interest in the details of history. 

 Such a course can be constructed on something like the following 

 lines: First Year: Selected chapters of Blackstone's Commentaries 

 (for acquiring the orthodox traditions); R. K. Wilson's History 

 of Modern English Law. Second Year: (a) Pollock & Maitland's 

 History of English Law, volume 1; and (6) Campbell's Lives of the 

 Chancellors, beginning with Lord Hardwicke. Extra and optional 

 course, to count for additional credit under the elective system: 

 (a) Pollock & Maitland's History of the English Law, volume 2, or 

 selected essays by Ames and others; (6) any three of the following: 

 Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, from Sir Thomas More to Lord 

 Hardwicke; Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices, from Lord Holt; 

 Campbell's Autobiography; Twiss's Life of Lord Eldon; Arnould's 

 Life of Lord Denman; Brown's Life of Rufus Choate. Third Year 

 (here branching from legal history to broadening subjects of juris- 

 prudence) : A course of reading (of one or two volumes) in specified 

 books on anyone of the following subjects: General jurisprudence. 

 Roman law, international law, Germanic legal history. Some- 

 thing of this sort must surely be done if the newer generation are 

 to be expected to know and to use the* results achieved by the 

 older scholars. 



