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a humdrum mechanical search for decided cases through volumes of legal dictionaries and encyclopedias, sometimes compiled at so much a page.

Not long ago similar thoughts were expressed in this city at a lawyers' meeting. The claim then made was equally vigorous, and colored with somewhat acrid criticism. Within a few months the learned writer of an opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals, of this circuit, deemed it fit, in cutting down the allowance of solicitors' fees, to resent such accusation, and said, "We are not unmindful of the dignity of the profession, nor forgetful of the important duty of counsel. We would not underrate that duty. We would magnify his office. For exacting labor done, weighty responsibilities assumed, and great results accomplished, we would deal out compensation with liberal hand. We think, however, that the dignity and honor of the profession are not conserved, nor its influence for good promoted by excessive allowance for service. That would lend countenance to the suggestion sometimes heard, that the commercial spirit of the age has invaded even the legal profession, to the impairment of its dignity, the blunting of its sense of honor; that a profession instituted for the maintenance of justice has become degenerate, and that its main calling now is a vulgar scramble for 'the almighty dollar.' We cannot bend our judgment to lend sanction to a foul aspersion."

Is it true that the modern lawyer is merely mechanical and unfitted by habit and capacity to deal with broad and fundamental principles? Is the lawyer of today a mere material tool of commercialism, narrow in mind, lacking in logic, and deficient in legal acumen? It is quite the vogue to make unfavorable comparisons between the intellectual and moral calibre of the statesmen and politicians of early days and those of the present time, and it seems to be of equal good form for certain members of the profession to belittle the capacity, ability, standard and calling of the present lawyer,

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and to see only what is grand, colossal and superb in the equipment of the lawyer of earlier days. But such sight perceives only a spectre born, I fear, where vital essence is wanting. To my mind, the successful lawyer of this time is better educated, better informed, better equipped, and all together possessed of a more comprehensive knowledge of the law than was the successful lawyer of fifty or seventy-five years ago. True, the present lawyer is more methodical and necessarily more businesslike than was the lawyer of earlier days. The possession of such qualities, however, rather aids than obstructs his mental advancement and aptitude. The methods, temperament and practices of the lawyer of today have been open to the influences of advancing civilization precisely as have been the sciences, and mechanical, commercial and all other walks of life. True, in the formative period of our government, the lawyer lacked many of the instruments and tools which the present practitioner possesses. The want of such implements made the lawyer possibly more original, but certainly not abler. The lawyer of today has not lost sight of the traditional learning of his profession, nor has he permitted modern commercialism to destroy in him “a just pride in the mastery of his work." The genius and brilliant attainments of the leaders of the bar of generations past are distanced by those of the present. The great working army of the profession, that part which does the active toil-the quiet, unobtrusive, industrious lawyer-he who constitutes with his brethren the brains, the biceps and forceps of the profession-is superior in legal and intellectual outfit to those holding similar rank in prior times;-I mean the class to whom may be applied the sentiment-what men need is not talent. so much as purpose; in other words, not merely the power to achieve, but the will to labor.

It appears from recently gathered statistics that the whole bar of England little more than a century ago consisted of less than 1,800 members. Now there are some 15,000.

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Though the population of England has been trebled in a century, the increase of lawyers there has been ninefold.

Our census reports show the proportion of lawyers to the population since 1850, when the first enumeration of occupations was made. The proportion in 1850 was slightly more than one to each 1,000 persons. Since then, it has increased until in 1890, it was one to 703, the population then being 62,622,250, and the number of lawyers in the United States computed at 82,227.

The same ratio of increase-and it is believed that the ratio has been much greater-will show that out of an estimated population in 1900 of 80,000,000, there are 114,285 lawyers-calculating on the basis of 1890 of one to every 703 persons, including adults and children.

In 1790, the population of this country was, in round numbers, 4,000,000, and the number of lawyers has been placed at less than 3,000, or one to every 1,333.

Though the increase in population has been twenty times, the increase in the number of lawyers has been at least fortyfold. Every lawyer of today, therefore, is like an atom in a mass of at least 115,000, or it would probably be more accurate to say 125, 000.

There is among the lawyers as a class a broader development, more diversified attainments, and a far greater average of intelligence and education today than was the case in the early days of the century. It was easier for an individual lawyer in those times to shine pre-eminently than it is today for the lawyer of equally marked ability-who has so great an army to meet with and contend against. The Websters,, the Choates, the Sargents, the Johnsons, the Pinckneys, the Binneys, and others of that plane were few among a small body, and thus could the more easily eclipse their brothers. The public was less intelligent, less educated and less informed, and the lawyers' forum was, therefore, the more narrow and circumscribed. The business of those lawyers

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was the settlement of contentions and strife in the courts. The occupation of many of the great lawyers of today is to act as counsellors, as guides-in an advisory capacity, rarely going to court. Great railway managers, merchants, manufacturers and bankers realize that "an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure," and that the most valuable service which a lawyer can render is "that which prevents the calamities of litigation." But when litigation does ensue, legal arguments of prodigious thought and power, never surpassed in depth, wisdom or learning, follow as the spring blossoms do a bounteous April shower. The myriad of questions in the wonderfully developed sphere of mechanical, electrical and commercial activities, not to mention the complex problems of state and inter-state and municipal law, that now confront and are solved by the busy lawyer, make the past field of the then lawyer incomparable to the present.

The lawyer of today is as much "the intrepid and incorruptible guardian" of the people's liberties and the enlightened and illuminating "champion of their rights" as was the lawyer of old. The magic of oratory may be in the wane, but the talisman of intellect, of skill, of character, and of efficiency, has been forward and onward. In the words of Judge Wilson, of Maine, "church goers, judges and jurors, senates and parliaments are not looking for flights of oratory nor tricks of elocution, but plain statements of fact from a man who knows."

The chief object of law is peace, and this can be accomplished the more readily and with more satisfaction where there is certainty. The lawyers of the early days of the republic had many uncertain and unsettled questions to grapple with, but they were infinitely smaller in number than those which fairly overwhelm the busy practitioners of today.

Lord Hardwicke said that, "Certainty is the mother of repose, and that, therefore, the law aims at certainty." In my view, more certainty prevails today than in those earlier

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times, strange as this may seem, if we consider the increased number of local and state governments, the consequent increase in courts, and the vast variety and number of questions arising, and to the extent of that greater certainty, the people benefit and civilization improves.

It will not do to say that the lawyer of former days worked out problems for himself unaided by precedent, and that, therefore, on account of his original work, his ability was more individualized and his legal sagacity more penetrating. Stupendous and overwhelming as may be the books of precedents today, the thorough and distinguished lawyer, and illustrious and learned judge, as their experience becomes diversified, look less and less to the letter of case law while illumining their chosen work.

True, the principle of adopting precedents as the guide of judicial proceedings gives stability and continuity to the administration of justice. Truer still, "speculative wisdom can never devise a system capable of providing for the infinite variety of cases arising out of the transactions of even the most simple state of society."

There are members of the bar of today leading in all important causes by the spontaneous acquiescence of their local associates, who understand most of the principles underlying and deducible from the great quantity of case law. The books of precedents certainly aid and contribute to their professional education by introducing them to the rules of law. Their easy command of these rules is, however, not dependent upon such books, but upon an intelligence created by primary original and rugged research, developed by application and experience.

No lawyer of earlier generations ever had presented to him the necessity for that intellectual grasp of facts and details that now confronts the legal master. "To hunt down and capture the needed authority" is barely the unrceling of the line when the leader of today branches out into the talents