NEW LAW SCHOOL INSTRUCTION

The Faculty of the Law School is planning to inaugurate a considerable change in the instruction of the first year law class next year. Realizing that one of the greatest advantages of a law school course is the opportunity for a student to observe legal minds of different types and that there is more legal education in six courses by as many teachers than in the same courses conducted by the best teacher of the six, it has determined upon a change allowing for a division of the instructors. Dean Thayer points out in his report that the new system will have its disadvantages as well as its benefits in that the different courses are so closely related with one another that it is difficult for the professors not to overlap each other or else not to leave unnecessary gaps with the result that the mind of the first-year law man is hopelessly confused and he is apt to entertain the unhealthy notion that the law is a mysterious agglomeration of disjointed matter in separate compartments. These disadvantages will be overcome in so far as it is possible by bringing the School to that state in which every instructor is thoroughly acquainted with the instruction of all of his colleagues and with that knowledge will conduct his own courses to better advantage. The more closely this state can be approximated, the sooner will the first-year student be enabled to overcome the difficulty which confronts every beginner in the law--the lack of legal back ground. This will not only be a great aid to the student but it will also help the teacher towards the systematizing and simplifying which our law needs, and is ready for today.

These considerations have led the Faculty to introduce the change in the first-year department to go into effect next fall. This change will consist principally in the introduction of a course on general liabilities during the first half-year which will furnish the necessary groundwork for the other divisions and in bringing the students under as many different professors as possible