The Late Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. 21 



he tells us, read much not prescribed in the college course. 

 His standing in college may be inferred from the fact that, 

 though much younger than many in his class, he was elected 

 to the second honor, in a class of about twenty-five. 



The winter after he left college was spent at home, 

 chiefly in the amusement of hunting. In the spring it was 

 necessary for him to enter upon a new course of life. It was 

 his father's plan to give his landed estate to the eldest son, 

 and throw the rest of his children upon their own resources; 

 thus working out in his own family the good and evil flow- 

 ing from the English law of primogeniture. 



In the spring, after an idle winter, he commenced the 

 study of law at Annapolis, in the office of Jeremiah 

 Townley Chace, then one of the judges of the General 

 Court of Maryland, a court of general jurisdiction, which 

 held four sessions a year for the trial of causes ; two at 

 Annapolis with a jury summoned from the western shore, 

 and two at Easton, with a jury summoned from the eastern 

 shore. Annapolis, being the chief centre of population and 

 commerce, was naturally the place where the most im- 

 portant litigation was carried on, and where eminent law- 

 yers and judges either resided or attended court. It was 

 therefore considered the place of all others in the state 

 where a man should study law. His mode of study here 

 is noteworthy. It is an admonition worth remembering. 

 He says himself : " I associated only with the students, and 

 studied closely. I have, for weeks together, read law twelve 

 hours in the twenty-four. But I am convinced that this 

 was mistaken diligence, and that I should have profited 

 more, if I had read law four or five hours, and spent some 

 more hours in thinking it over, and considering the prin- 

 ciples it established, and the cases to which it might be 

 applied." With an ordinary man the mode of reading 

 pursued by him, ends in a dismal swamp, in much vague 

 knowledge, without any clear apprehension of principles. 



