may be led into paths of peace or destruction. As we recall. the great temptation to the lawyer to take that course which may lead to the largest remuneration to himself, but with the least to his client, a temptation as great today in America as in Rome when described by the poet in the line,

"Lucri bonus est odor ex re qualibet,"

and when we think of the delicate distinctions in the law, which cause even the most scrupulous counselors to doubt as to the safe and proper mode of procedure, which makes it possible for a lawyer to cover his tracks in the accomplishment of his wicked ends, if he be so inclined, we are forced to the conclusion, however important it may be to the country, that our lawyers should be learned in the law, that this great desideratum is as nothing compared with the demand that the lawyer should be saturated with principles of genuine honesty; and without disparaging the one, but upholding it with earnestness, I dare venture to assert that the real need of America today in the transaction of private business and in the moulding of a lofty, public sentiment is the high-toned, honorable, conscientious lawyer.

No more difficult question can be presented to this Association, or to those auxiliary associations in the different states, than that of purging its membership of the unworthy member who brings dishonor upon the whole profession. Instances of irregularity and dishonesty will only be known to those of the local Bar where the derelict conducts his immoral practices; personal, social and even political ties render it trying and embarrassing to bring the guilty to justice, but if our profession is to receive the reward which is its just due, and is to accomplish the high aim for which it is destined, this work must be undertaken and carried out fearlessly and thoroughly. This is one of the many questions to be considered in the education of the lawyer, and like all other questions which affect morality and ethics, can best be accomplished in the very beginning of the study of the law, when character is unformed and "like clay

in the hands of the potter" by the hand of a master may be moulded for good; and I venture to suggest that no plan can be adopted more productive of good results for the profession in this direction than the adoption in all schools of law which are preparing young men for the profession of an enlarged and comprehensive course in the subject of "legal ethics" to be taught (as the President has well declared in the address above referred to) by "men of lofty ideals, which they try to live up to and not merely to talk of."

I make bold to venture another suggestion for the same purpose that the system, known as the honor system, be speedily adopted in every law school in America. A system by which the young man at the very beginning of his legal education is brought to realize that in the crucial test to which he is subjected by examination for graduation he is not to be watched as a suspect or guarded as a felon, but he is to be allowed to work out his own salvation and his own examination with a simple reliance by those in authority, on his pledged honor, that it will be done without assistance from any source. If at the very threshold of his professional education, and all through it, for three years, he realizes that a system of espionage is necessary to keep him from doing wrong, and that adopting the Spartan idea he may be guilty of any theft, if only he omits the sin of detection, what must be the effect upon him when that system is withdrawn and he is ushered into the broad fields of his professional life, with no one then to watch him in his dealings with his client and with no eye upon him except the Eye that never slumbers nor sleeps? Can a man be trusted to meet the temptation of professional life, without a watcher or a spotter, who is impliedly told by the presence of such during the progress of his education. that such an officer is needed to insure unaided returns upon examinations? The honor system does not work perfection; the incorrigible may still escape its ennobling influences, but the very willingness of the authorities to adopt such a system, of itself stimulates the weak and strengthens the strong; and

wherever this system has been adopted it has worked like a charm, in creating a manly sentiment of honor and integrity and a corresponding scorn of chicanery and deception, not only during the period of examinations, but in all the paths of college life, and while occasionally some are found to violate its rules, they are, under the system, summarily dealt with by the student body without the aid of or even consultation with the faculty, and are thereby compelled to leave the institution in disgrace, while their punishment and their example tend to deter others who may be weak; and surely it is far better that those who are incapable of appreciating the high position of trust and confidence that the lawyer must occupy to the public should at the beginning of life be excluded from the profession rather than be allowed, through a long life, to plunder and despoil confiding clients.

May heaven avert the calamity of our young men entering the profession with public sentiment, or the sentiment of the Bar upholding or excusing a condition of public and private morals so powerfully satirized by the pagan poet:

"Rem facias, rem si possis recte, si non, quo cunque

modo rem."

My closing appeal to the representatives of the American Bar Association, who stand forth clothed in priestly robes, as ministers at the altar of justice, is for the vindication of the claim that the profession of the law is the most ennobling and powerful for good of all the secular professions. With our loins girded and our lamps burning, our Association by keeping alive the fires of professional purity upon her altars may, in working out her future destiny, add to her proud achievements in the history of our beloved country still richer trophies in the progress of our noble profession.

THE AMERICAN LAWYER.

ANNUAL ADDRESS BY

ALFRED HEMENWAY,

OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the American Bar Associa

tion:

We are told that in the United States there are more than one hundred and fourteen thousand lawyers, each of whom, as a part of the ceremonial of admission to the Bar, has taken the oath of allegiance and that other oath of impressive solemnity, the attorney's oath, whereby he invokes God's help that he may do no falsehood nor consent to the doing of any in court; that he may not wittingly or willingly promote or sue any false, groundless or unlawful suit, nor give aid or consent to the same; that he may delay no man for lucre or malice, but that he may conduct himself in the office of attor ney within the courts according to the best of his knowledge and discretion and with all good fidelity as well to the courts as to clients.

That he has a good moral character must appear to the satisfaction of the court. With zealous care justice guards her portals.

On admission to the Bar each becomes an officer of the court. It is the "office of attorney" to which he is admitted. His tenure is for life or during good behavior.

Thus accredited and so consecrated, he enters upon the practice of the law whose code of morals finds fit expression in the memorable words of the "Institutes": "Juris præcepta sunt hæc honeste vivere, alterum non lædere, suum cuique tribuere." "These are the precepts of the law to live honorably, to injure nobody, to render to everyone his due." This is the golden rule of the civil law. Its terse utterance

is the law's practical rule of conduct. Its generality does not make it valueless. It is like the cardinal points of the compass.

The Bar is a part of the court. "It is believed," said Mr. Justice Miller in Garland's case, "that no civilized nation of modern times has been without a class of men intimately connected with the courts and with the administration of justice, called variously attorneys, counselors, solicitors, proctors and other terms of similar import.

They are as essential

to the successful working of the courts as the clerks, sheriffs and marshals, and, perhaps, as the judges themselves, since no instance is known of a court of law without a Bar." And Mr. Justice Field, in the same ease, said: "The attorney and counselor being, by the solemn judicial act of the court, clothed with his office does not hold it as a matter of grace and favor. The right which it confers upon him to appear for suitors and to argue causes is something more than a mere indulgence, revocable at the pleasure of the court or at the command of the legislature. It is a right of which he can only be deprived by the judgment of the court for moral or professional delinquency."

The lawyer can be removed from his office by no act of the legislature, for disbarment must be a judicial act.

The great lawyers of Rome were the real interpreters of the law. They furnished the knowledge of the law to the prætor. So it has ever been that in great measure the learning of the court is the learning of the Bar. The opinion of the judge survives; but the arguments of counsel are forgotten. The fame of the judge lives in the memory of succeeding generations. The reputation of the lawyer is fleeting. His name is writ in water. Pemberton Leigh refused to be solicitor general, a puisne judge, a vice chancellor, and finally declined the high office of lord chancellor and a peerage. Who remembers him now?

And yet many an opinion of light and leading is but the recasting of the brief which is forgotten. Webster's argument moulded the opinion of Marshall in the Dartmouth Col