His idea of a "model text-book" may be gathered from the preface to the "Rule against Perpetuities:"

"Such a book should deal with the whole of its subject, its history, its relation to other parts of the law, its present condition, the general principles which have been evolved and the errors which have been eliminated in its development, and the defects which still mar its logical symmetry, or, what is of vastly greater moment, lessen its value as a guide to conduct."

This nice balance of different elements illustrates the sense of proportion which was so conspicuous in Mr. Gray. Writing when the spirit of the time gave a great scholar like him every excuse for overweighting the historical side, he valued his scholarship only as it could serve the needs of his fellowmen. Adequate and illuminating as was his historical matter, it was always subordinated to his main end. Especially he never lost sight of the importance of order and system. As he once said in defending an author whose power of analysis helped atone for the weakness of his history, "Though God did not have Gray's Botany or Dana's Mineralogy beside him when he made the world, and even though they are not the cloudless mirror of the divine idea, yet they are useful to weak mortals."

Among the qualities which have given his work its place with the best law books in the language is his conciseness. Without making the attempt, it is hard to realize the skill needed to attain such lucidity and completeness in so small a compass. Any one can write a long book; short books like Mr. Gray's mean the lifelong toil of a master. He knew the truth in Stevenson's exclamation: "There is but one art, to omit. A man who knew how to omit would make an Iliad of a daily paper."

Another feature of his writings is what his half brother, Mr. Justice Gray, once called, in speaking of another, "that clearness of statement which was the result of clearness of apprehension." This is well shown in his treatment of analytical jurisprudence, a subject in which a writer's head is so soon lost in the clouds that it is hard for him to keep his feet on the ground, much less follow a straight path and avoid the pitfalls of profitless logomachy and muddled abstraction. To Mr. Gray's common sense and cleancutting mind these dangers were only a challenge, and throughout "The Nature and Sources of the Law" he unfailingly puts his deep

est thought to the test of reality. The illustrations from the camp, the field, or the dinner-table which light up its pages happily distinguish it from other writings of its kind.

A distinguished style, spoken or written, was the natural product of a mind with the power to master his amazing learning without letting it master him. The world's best literature had become a part of him; and his reading seemed to include every time and every subject. Its range was little realized even by his friends. Those who knew how deeply read he was in theology might not suspect that exercises in the higher mathematics were a recreation of his summer holiday, or that the classics attracted him no less. I remember coming upon him one summer evening while he was entertaining his leisure with the Odyssey, and in answer to my questions I found that he was going through it for at least the third time. The classic training that enabled him to handle his Greek so lightly no doubt had much to do with the terse elegance of his diction; but it came also from the directness of his character. His hatred of sham or pretence in any form, his perfect lack of affectation or pose, even to himself, combined with his bright intelligence to produce an intellectual honesty that matched the soundness of his moral fibre. Small wonder, then, in these days of labored epigram, of slovenly and self-conscious attempts at distinction made to order, how telling was his plain English, used for no purpose except to express exactly an exact thought. Rigidly as he avoided conscious ornament, he could not escape the allusions and classic turns of phrase which sprang of themselves from a soil so cultivated. The grace and power of his style, as well as his habit of thought, are well shown in the attack in the preface to the "Restraints on Alienation" (second edition) upon doctrines offensive to his uncompromising sense of honesty. His discussion of teaching methods in 1 Yale Law Journal, 159, is another good specimen of his work.

Such qualities as these were bound to tell in his teaching. The daily intimacy of the classroom, under a system which keeps the instructor under fire and exhibits him in action, leaves nothing unrevealed. Weakness of intellect or character becomes as evident as tricks of manner. By the same token contact with a fine legal mind seeking nothing but the truth was a legal education and something more. His scorn of pedantry, his freedom from the least touch of self-consciousness, brought moral as well as intellectual stimulus.

He treated his pupils as fellow-students, working with him on an equal footing to get at the truth. By so doing he brought before them most effectively the vastness of the law, and he made this very thought, so apt to discourage a beginner, a source of inspiration; for as the student had long since learned that Mr. Gray could stoop to no pose, he was excited by the sense of really helping his master. He had other special gifts, too, to help him as a teacher. He understood men, no doubt because of his own direct and manly nature. And he had a wonderfully swift and smoothly working mind. Among the teacher's pitfalls is the danger that after long reflection he can see the thing in only one way. His thought thus hardens into a rigid outline, and his very learning may increase his difficulty in dealing with a beginner who comes at the matter from an unexpected and unlawyerlike angle. The flexibility with which Mr. Gray met his questioner's mind, his interest in doing so, the ease and directness with which he followed out a new line of reasoning to a fruitful conclusion, make him a unique figure in the memory of thousands of grateful pupils. And their indebtedness to him is manifold. One of them, at least, found in a few words of parting advice to the third-year class more help than in any other single experience in the Law School.

Among all their memories of Mr. Gray the most grateful to his old students will be his affection for them. This was one of the great feelings of his life. Although he continued to practise while he taught (a thing made possible by what he described as his "very peculiar and very fortunate" relations with his partners, and his not less fortunate and peculiar mental gifts and methods of work), he always put the Law School first, and more than once thought of giving up practice for the same reasons which led him to decline the highest judicial office. The sign that told him it was time to give up teaching after more than forty years was that it was no longer a regret to reach the end of the teaching hour. What that hour had always meant before is best told in his farewell letter to his last class: "Property 3 has been a perpetual delight to me, never wearisome. I have always felt that on both sides it was not an attempt to show how much we knew, or how smart we were, but that we were fellow-students trying to get to the bottom of a difficult subject." These were the words of one whose restraints of conscience and temperament made it impossible to go in

expression a hair's breadth beyond the line of his exact feeling; and they find in the hearts of his pupils the same response as did the dedication of his book "to his old pupils, whose affectionate regard has been to him a life-long blessing, from their grateful master."

Ezra Ripley Thayer.

Dean Thayer's sketch of Mr. Gray makes it unnecessary for me to put in writing much that would naturally come to my mind, for Gray's learning, versatility, charm of manner, expression and character must have struck all with whom he came in contact as they have struck Dean Thayer. In adding a few words I can only hope by repetition and illustration to emphasize some of our colleague's characteristics, not to change or even add much to what the Dean has said.

When Gray died there passed from among us a man whose type has always been rare and is growing rarer. It is so difficult to achieve excellence even in one department that the old ideal of a rounded life and a broad intellectual outlook has been almost surrendered by men of serious purpose, as inconsistent with any plan for real accomplishment. Gray, however, found no inconsistency. He was at once a specialist in a narrow and difficult branch of the law, a lawyer in general practice, a man of affairs, a teacher, a writer, a well-read scholar in various fields with cultivated interests in letters and art and a man of the world by no means averse to mingling in congenial society.

I first met him in 1885, when I entered the Law School as a student, and the impression of his teaching is still fresh in my mind. He had in speaking, as in writing, the same excellent style, an easy, flowing, clear expression of his ideas, without preciosity or study for effect, yet by no means wanting in occasional verbal felicities. He taught in those years as he did thereafter, until the death of Professor Thayer in 1902, the Law of Property, mainly Real Property. The topic seemed congenial to him and he made it interesting to the class. His courses were valued, and zealous preparation made for them. The first edition of his treatise on "Perpe

tuities" was published while I was in the School and was received with much enthusiasm by the students. His little book on "Restraints on Alienation" had already been published.

When not teaching, most of the professors were withdrawn in the library stack, where students in those days did not much venture. Gray, however, sat at a large table in an alcove opening out of the students' reading-room. This fact and his friendly and helpful ways made him much resorted to by the students. Though he was actively engaged in practice in Boston, he generally spent four days of each week at the School. Much of the time while he was there I suppose he was working on business of his office. His partners doubtless enabled him to specialize his own work, so that much of it could be done in Cambridge.

An anecdote told me by a colleague relating to an incident, which occurred about this time, is worth preserving as showing Gray's interest in his students and his ability to give in a few words the necessary help.

One Christmas vacation a young student from the west, who was detained at the Law School during vacation because of his distance from home, was seeking to get an introduction to the Roman Law, though it was not a part of the school curriculum. With this in mind, he was reading Mackenzie's book on the subject. Gray, passing by, caught a glimpse of the title of the book, stopped and said simply, "Don't read that." The student replied, "What shall I read?" Gray inquired, "Do you read German?" and the student answering that he had some slight knowledge of the language, Gray went into the stack, secured a copy of Sohm's "Institutes," which had then recently appeared in German and had not been translated, set it down before the student, saying, "Read that," and went about his work. These few words were instrumental in giving a beginner a proper starting point for years of study of the Roman Law.

When I became a member of the law faculty in 1890 I met Gray, of course, more frequently and on a somewhat different footing, but he was always the same. His common sense was so great that one did not always appreciate how uncommon it was. He was never wordy or vague, and though generally having a clear idea of his own on a matter in hand, was by no means inhospitable to the ideas of others. His methods of work were admirable. He seemed never