The State University Law School is the first and chief requirement. It is the home law that arouses interest and holds the attention. What a differ ence between the reception extended to a ca.e from England, Canada or Austra lia and the ardent welcome given to a case from the home jurisdiction! Take, for instance, the Six Carpenters' case, Coke 146a, found in every text and case book on Torts, the foundation case for the doctrine of trespass ab initio, a very interesting case, a little far away in time and space, a little vague, with the six carpenters in the inn just emerg ing from the haze of the past. Now connect this case with the home juris diction by not merely citing, but by taking up for class discussion, the less famous, but far more instructive case of Boston & Maine R. R. Co. v. Small, 85 Maine 462, 27 Atl. R. 349, 35 Am. St. R. 379, Opinion by Chief Justice Emery. Note the immed ate interest in the time, the place, the nature of the action, in the lawyers arguing, and in the judges deciding the contest. Take a case like this from the home jurisdiction, and the men are invariably better prepared, more eager for discussion, more prompt to take sides, more ready to differ from one another and the teacher. Curiosity, interest, combativeness, all combine to fix the attention on facts and principles. New aspects are discovered, new ques tions asked. The old is found in the new, the new in the old. There is unity in variety, variety in unity. The facts seem plainer, the principles clearer, and the law itself appears more real to the men because it is their law, laid down by their courts speaking in the name of the State as representing the sovereign people of which, again, they themselves are part. Attention is thus held to the point at issue, more easily than under any other conceivable circumstances, until the possibilities of class instruction
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are exhausted for that day, that teacher, that class. Interest, attention, and passion are the chief elements of success in teaching, in study, and in life. As philosophers and psychologists down to Professor James have all assured us: Concentration, memory, reasoning power, inventiveness, excellence of the senses, are all subsidiary to this primeval and primal requisite of life. Attention, watch fulness, eternal vigilance, the being, as Frederick the Great said, toujours en vedette, are the essentials of victory in any cause. These qualities are most needed by home and school, by church and state, and the teaching and the study of the law of the home jurisdiction tend to develop them more certainly than any other system, however wisely framed, based on the eclectic study of all laws in general and of none in particu lar. To connect one idea with another is the essense of thinking; to study one case by another is the true secret of legal training. This one case, Boston & Maine R. R. v. Small, connects the Six Carpenters' case not only with the law of the jurisdiction, but with the laws of New England and New York as well. But it is not Maine only that has had great judges that gave great opinions, men like Mellen and Shepley, like Kent and Appleton, like Peters and Emery. Such men are to be found in other jurisdictions also. If you doubt this, seek and you shall find. Happy, thrice happy, the jurisdiction whose judges are also teachers of the law. Studying the law in this way you get the common law as well as the law of the jurisdiction, the history of the rule as well as its application today, the sub stantive as well as the adjective law, or, to speak with Chief Justice Baldwin, of Connecticut, "You pick up practice necessarily and practice in a very great variety of circumstances"; — and all
