The Editor’s Bag
543
and public documents. The movement WHERE ARE THE LAW BOOKS? HE suggestion elsewhere made in these pages—that law librarians
in the United States supply information regarding the contents of their libraries
for insertion in a report to be published by the United States Bureau of Edu
to scatter broadcast the knowledge of any such special collections may be regarded as favorable to the advance ment of legal learning, as well as in
line with latest developments in library science.
cation-—is a good one, which deserves
AN INTERNATIONAL CORPUS
to be followed. While it is the ambition of every progressive law librarian to
JURIS NEEDED
build up as complete,
HE expense of maintaining in
well-balanced
a collection as possible, every library is
creased armaments is a momentous
necessarily the outgrowth to some ex tent of special conditions, and no two
problem for the United States, and one
libraries are alike.
There are
few
even more momentous for England and
Germany.
It can hardly be doubted
librarians who, scanning their collec tions, will not find them especially strong in some particular respects. Exceptional strength in some one feature may not seem highly significant to the
that the necessity for prudent govern mental finance will enlist steadily grow ing public support for the international
librarian, yet the information may be
ceeded from what might be called a
found valuable in some unlooked-for
moral source, and an ethical impetus
quarter, and librarians ought certainly to co-operate heartily in any movement which seeks to tabulate such informa
was given to the movement which is likely to persist; and if it is now to be enforced by an economic impetus,
tion and make it accessible. The literature of the law differs from
as seems inevitable, the twentieth cen tury will witness notable strides, if
that of other professions, for the lawyer
not
is forced to make constant use of a far greater number of books than either
certainly toward the international arbi
arbitration movement. The earlier agi tation for international arbitration pro
toward
absolute
disarmament,
the physician or the clergyman, and the practical requirements of his pro
tration of all save the most extra ordinary disputes. Renewed interest in disarmament
fession define pretty clearly the proper
has lately been aroused by the advo
policy to be followed in gathering a
cacy of some distinguished statesmen,
large law library. There is doubtless less room for specialization in such libraries than in other libraries. Never
that, under the present conditions of
theless, where the working requirements
of the practising lawyers using the library have been met, there is always the opportunity to expand in purely scientific directions,
or to swell the
historical and critical literature; and many a library has scholarly volumes not elsewhere accessible, not to speak
of unnumbered rows of rare reports
and one is easily misled into thinking world politics, it can become a reality. Ex-President Roosevelt and Senator Root have both strongly urged the importance of concluding international
agreements respecting the size of navies. Such agitation may doubtless serve a good purpose, in that it stimulates the agitation of those other momentous
problems upon which that of disarma ment depends for its solution. It may
