delegates to represent this Association in the conference on the copyright law called upon the initiative of the Librarian of Congress. I move that the resolution be adopted. Amasa M. Eaton, of Rhode Island: I second the motion. The resolution was adopted. (See the Report of the Delegate to the Conference in the Appendix.) Robert S. Taylor: I have one further report from the Committee on Patent, Trade-mark and Copyright Law, upon the subject of the extension of patents. This subject was referred to the committee by resolution two years ago. The report is in print and has been distributed more than fifteen days before this meeting. It contains the draft of a bill providing for the extension of a patent in proper cases. I may say in general terms, what I have no doubt you have yourselves discovered if you have read the report, that the bill has been very carefully drawn so as to throw all possible safeguards about the extension of patents. The committee offers the following resolution : Resolved, That the report of the Committee on Patent, Trade-mark and Copyright Law on the subject of the extension of patents be received and approved, and that the draft of a bill for the extension of patents, embodied in said report, be, and the same is approved by the Association, and the committee is directed to use all proper means within its power to secure the passage of the same by Congress. I move the adoption of this resolution. Everett P. Wheeler, of New York: I will second that resolution. The resolution was adopted. (See the Report in the Appendix.) The President: Is there any report from the Committee on Grievances? Moorfield Storey, of Massachusetts: I am informed by the Secretary, Mr. President, that no grievances have been referred to the committee. The President: The next report on the list is the Committee on Obituaries. The Secretary: The Committee on Obituaries present the following report. (See the Report in the Appendix.) The President: Gentlemen, you have heard the report. What will you do with it? Rodney A. Mercur, of Pennsylvania: I move that it be received and adopted. The motion was adopted. The President: The Committee on Law Reporting and Digesting. Mr. President and gentlemen: I have a written report here, which, however, embodies no resolution. The subject is one which has been discussed a great deal from time to time, and it seems hardly worth while to take up time now in reading the report. If the report is received and filed, it will be printed in our minutes. Two years ago the question whether some plan could not be adopted for reducing the volume of reports, either through the action of the judges or the reporters, was referred to the committee. The committee found that there is difficulty in doing that. There is a difference of opinion arising out of different conditions in various parts of the country. Where questions are well settled by a long line of decisions there is a desire that the reports should be shortened and that the Bar should be relieved from such a multiplicity of reports by the printing of cases which are not of special importance. In the newer states, however, there is a desire to have all the cases reported. The committee, therefore, cannot make a general recommendation which shall apply to all states alike. In the first place, they endeavored to devise some definite uniform plan of reporting to be adopted in all the states; but this Association has no authority to provide that, and, as the reporters are not represented in the Association, no definite plan on that subject has been adopted. But, as a matter of fact, there is a general plan which has been adopted by those who have made digests for the whole country, and there is a general tendency among the various state reporters to adopt a plan which has become generally familiar and which has been found to be practicable. Another subject referred to the committee is the restriction of the volume of reports. Opinions which are merely discussions of the evidence and conclusions of fact ought not to be reported in full. If they are reported at all, a summary of the facts with a statement of the conclusions is all that should be printed. There are many opinions containing conclusions of law that are of no value at all in the reports. This is fully set forth in the committee's report, and I will not read it. The report refers to the fact that in England great care is taken in condensing the reports by a person appointed for the purpose; but there is no such officer in this country and the reporters have not the advantage of co-operation, nor can they take the responsibility, nor are they willing to take it, of selecting cases. In the Reporter system there is an organization in which competent men may be trained to work together on a definite plan, and the profession has a right to expect that the reports shall be made with a view to keeping down the volume of them as much as possible. The President: As the report has not been printed, but is in manuscript, I think the gentleman from New Jersey had better read it. Edward Q. Keasbey, of New Jersey, then read the report. (See the Report in the Appendix.) John Morris, of Indiana: I move that the report be received and adopted. J. Crawford Biggs, of North Carolina: I second the motion. The motion was adopted. The President: Is there any report from the Committee on Classification of the Law? James D. Andrews, of New York: The specific subjects of the classification of law came before this Association about sixteen years ago through the medium of a communication from a New York lawyer. At that time it provoked considerable discussion, and it came before the Association just at the time of the memorable debate in reference to the codification of the law. The Committee on Classification of the Law have in times past done a great deal of work, but have accomplished very little results-perhaps less of practical result than they have of academic. The reason is, of course, that the Association and its committees cannot act practically upon a classification of the law and carry it out without the expenditure of more time and money than any ordinary committee can devote to it. I think also it may be safely said that the American Bar, and even the teachers, professors of law, have not been very actively interested in the subject of legal classification. I think it may be said that they do not fully perceive the intimate relations between classification of law and the primary, paramount object of this Association, namely, the promotion of jurisprudence, or one might almost say, the creation of jurisprudence; for until we have a systematic body of law systematized we cannot have a jurisprudence. It has, therefore, been agreed upon by those of the committee who are here, after consultation with the Chairman of the Committee on Jurisprudence and Law Reform, to ask the Association to commit the subject of legal classification, which is now committed to a special committee, to the joint deliberations of the Committee on Jurisprudence and Law Reform and the Committee on Classification of the Law. In a matter of this kind the first thing is to impress upon our minds, and disseminate that impression throughout the profession, that classification is one of the essentials, if not the essential instrument of a highly developed jurisprudence. In reference to that subject I beg to submit to you a thought expressed by two great scholars. Oftentimes the most moderate expression may be accompanied with the greatest force, and oftentimes the most concise expression will carry the fullest conviction. I wish to read to you for incorporation into our minutes, so that you may peruse it at your leisure, an expression by that learned lawyer whose eulogies we have listened to here with such approbation, James C. Carter: "A science, at least an inductive science, to which class law belongs, consists in the observation and classification of facts." On several occasions Mr. Carter emphasized and elaborated that thought. I desire to communicate it to you in all its strength and simplicity, and leave it to your judgment as to its truth, when on a later occasion we may have something to report to you. The other comes from a scholar not so well known in these circles, but I submit it because of the inherent strength and beauty of expression of the same thought, the intimate relations between classification and science: "The progress from the aimless observation of individuals to a system consists in this, that an order was introduced and applied in which these separate observations supplemented and checked one another, but the individual systems themselves still stood in chaotic confusion. beside one another. An individual was needed to introduce order here, too. An individual framed, out of the many ideas concerning politics, science, jurisprudence, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, philology, a new and great conceptionSCIENCE. We know this individual, and his divine namePlato; and we know, too, the man who, with tremendous. energy, undertook the task of carrying out the new programme, who first created a system of separate science, a classification of human knowledge-Aristotle." |