The Green Bag

78

and philosophical statement of the common law is of importance not only, and perhaps not primarily, to the practising lawyer, but funda mentally to Courts, legislatures and law teachers; that the plan which you propose seems to me to be the only one in accordance with which the work may be satisfactorily done.’ And adds :—

"some foundation provided for the pur pose would be in furtherance of one of the deepest interests of humanity and civilised government.

can jurisprudence to something like order and unity. If, as your plan contemplates, the treatise shall represent the finest legal scholar ship and the best professional experience of our country (and I can see no reason why you should not be able to command both for such a project) it will undoubtedly be eagerly welcomed by the profession and take its place as a notable achievement of the American bar. I shall be glad to contribute, in every way possible, to the success of the enter

prise."

The work cannot, as you well

say, be entrusted to commercial interests, and, as we know very well, it cannot be en trusted to legislation."

‘And it is peculiarly fortunate for the nation and the profession that Dean

So also United States Circuit Judge Grosscup of Chicago writes :—

Kirchwey is now actively engaged as a prime factor in organizing the project and bringing it to its present state of development. '

"I believe that the Corpus juris, when pub lished, will be one of the greatest influences put forth by this generation of men. . . . We have come to a time when, for the sake of civiliza tion, as well as the practical administration of the law, the body of the law should be put into scientific form."

He further says that “its loss to the world would be a distinct loss, and per

haps an irremediable one,” and adds 2 “Any word that I can say to anyone who is interested in a statement of the law, not as a

commercial venture but as one of the avenues through which civilization moves forward, 1 will be glad to say."

- It is submitted that with an editorial force such as that planned, a magnum opus would be produced, exhibiting the

corpus of American Law in an orderly and systematic manner and under a logical scheme of classification, which when once mastered by the Bench and Bar would make it possible for the fundamental principles and leading

authorities governing any particular subject to be quickly found. A great insti tutional treatise produced under the plan outlined one can readily understand would be far superior to the encyclo

paedic digests published by the law After this undertaking had been sub

mitted to one of the ablest and best known teachers of law in America— Dean Kirchwey of Columbia, I received

book firms as commercial enterprises, and which in many instances employ second and third rate editors, in some cases securing (and mainly to attract

from him a letter in which he spoke of

being “deeply interested in the project

buyers) a few well-known writers on

of giving to the world a complete system atic statement of the law of the land," and declared :—

particular subjects-—men who sometimes permit the use of their names, after having done little more than read the

"It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of such a work to the bench and bar and, indeed, to our country and its insti

tutions. The plan stirs my imagination as a contribution, perhaps the greatest single con tribution that could be made, to the great work of reducing the chaos of our complicated Ameri

manuscript prepared for their signatures. Such productions have been forcefully commented upon by Judge Dillon and

others, supra, and are mere makeshifts unworthy of the name even of digests, with their masses of undigested and

improperly digested materials.