Yale Adds New Block of Buildings to Law School Through Gift of Trustees of J. W. Sterling Estate

New Haven, Conn., May 19--Yale University announced today plans for the new buildings for the Law School. These buildings are the gift of the Trustees of the estate of J. W. Sterling '64, eminent lawyer of New York City, and will bear Mr. Sterling's name. In addition to the money to be made available for these buildings, the estimated cost of which is $3,500,000, the Trustees plan to give to the University over $1,000,000 as an endowment fund for their maintenance.

The Sterling Law buildings will occupy the entire block bounded by Wall, High, Grove and York Streets. The old Hopkins Grammar School, now called Hopkins Hall, will be razed to make way for the new structure. The buildings will be Gothic in style, harmonizing with the Memorial Quadrangle and the Sterling Memorial Library, next to which they will stand. Three large open courts will occupy the center of the block. In one of them a small building providing temporary quarters for distinguished visitors to the School will be erected.

To Accommodate 238 Men

The buildings will contain dormitory accommodations for 238 men, a library of 250,000 volumes, class-rooms, seminars, offices, commons rooms, dining rooms, and an auditorium for gatherings open to the public. This auditorium, accommodating 600 people, will stand at the corner of High and Grove Streets. It will have separate entrances, so that it may be shut off from the School proper if desired. On the High Street front will be offices and seminar rooms, and above them, the library. The offices of the Dean and the Registrar will be placed in the corner of High and Wall Streets. The Wall and York Street elevations will be devoted to student rooms. The first floor of the Grove Street side of the buildings will be given over to a large common room, which can be used as a banquet hall and to which will be connected a small dining room, as well as a kitchen. On the floors will be additional dormitory rooms.

James Gamble Rogers, architect of the University plan and designer of the Memorial Quadrangle and the Sterling Memorial Library, is now engaged on the working drawings for the Sterling Law Buildings. While no definite date has been set for beginning construction, the University, plans to get the buildings under way within a year.

Hope to Develop Professional Solidarity

"The munificent gift of the Sterling Trustees will make it possible for Yale to introduce in the Law School something of the spirit and atmosphere of the English Inns-of-Court," said R. M. Hutchins, Acting Dean of the School, in commenting today upon the University announcement. "Yale is the first privately endowed university in America to take this step. The men will live together and frequently, if not always, dine together. Thus will be developed, we hope, an intimate sense of professional solidarity and interest in legal problems. The recent important changes in the policy of the School in limiting the entering class to 100 and extending the Honors Course, inaugurated last fall, will enable the School to receive the maximum of advantage from such an arrangement. The Inns-of-Court idea is best adapted for use in a small school of highly selected men.

"The buildings, as a whole, are planned to further at every point the distinctive program which the School has adopted. There are a few large lecture rooms and a great many seminar rooms and offices. To help carry out the School's intention to forward graduate study and research, the library is planned for 250,000 volumes as contrasted with the 80,000 we now possess. The presence of the Sterling Memorial Library in the immediate vicinity of the School will aid in furthering research. The Yale Law Journal, which publishes much of the research done at Yale, will have commodious quarters on the library floor. That floor will also contain a reading room for the entire school and alcoves for graduate students.

Auditorium To Be Gathering Place

"The School now has no place where all the students may gather," Mr. Hutchins continued. "The proposed auditorium will meet this need and will also permit of the attendance of the public at lectures and other events of general interest. The lecturers themselves can be entertained in the small building two stories high, which Mr. Rogers has designed for their accommodation. To provide for the development of procedural work, a practice court room and judge's chambers are to be placed in the first floor of the main building.

Would Improve Quality of Education

"One of the most impressive benefits which the School will derive from the gift of the Sterling Trustees is that all funds hereafter raised for the Law School can be devoted to developing the human and intellectual undertakings we have in mind; adding to the faculty, enriching the library, promoting research and publication, supporting the loan and fellowship funds and improving the quality rather than the quantity of education. In this direction the School has already gone very far. In voting to reduce student numbers next fall and in introducing Honors Courses this year, the Faculty announced its determination to restrict its efforts to giving the best students obtainable the most thorough training possible. This year we have had 55 men in Honors Courses, working individually or in small groups under the supervision of the instructor, on important and practical legal problems. The results of this work have been so gratifying that we shall extend this type of study into other fields next year. The new buildings will give us exactly the kind of facilities which the work requires.

"The buildings are planned for a small school," Mr. Hutchins said, "for the Faculty is not at present disposed to have more than 400 students in the institution. The reduction in the numbers of the first year class will make it possible for us to select our men even more carefully than heretofore. Although we are more than a month from the closing date for applications, we have already had so many we can safely say that we shall reject more applicants than we admit. All applicants must be college graduates so that we shall have next year a very highly selected student group."

John W. Sterling, in whose memory the new law buildings are named, graduated from Yale in 1864, and through his estate, has been one of Yale's greatest benefactors.