final examinations, oral only, of the seniors. A student of that day, who was afterward a member of the faculty, said that each senior was supposed to be asked a few questions, but the examination was largely a matter of form. No one was rejected. The men sat at the feet of great lawyers, learned men, and could learn much or little as they might elect. Graduation entitled them to admission to the bar. Other law schools of that date required no more, some less, and admission to the bar by the office route was easier still. There were few requirements. In the Department of Law there were the moot courts, and a written dissertation, or thesis, of not less than forty folios was required for graduation, "but no great stress was laid upon it."
With the second twenty-five years the textbook appeared. Instruction by lecture continued, but some courses were given by textbook, or by lectures and cases or textbook and cases, and toward the end of this second period sometimes by the study and discussion of cases alone, with running comment by the professor. In the third quarter-century of the Department of Law, since 1915 called the Law School, instruction by lecture or textbook rapidly disappeared and was largely, but not entirely, displaced by the so-called case method of instruction. To receive credit in the second and third periods of the School the student was required to pass written examinations in each subject pursued. These examinations at first were largely memory tests, but later became tests in legal reasoning on hypothetical cases involving principles of law in the subject. Cases form the basic material in developing the principles of law, and ability to apply legal principles to the ordinary controversies of life is the test by which preparation to enter the practice of the law is measured. Thus the Law School is "practical" by teaching the law student how to use in practice the knowledge he has acquired in school.
Recently, there has been much discussion in the law schools about relating the law more closely to the present conditions of living, particularly in their social and economic aspects. Some schools have announced new approaches to the law and revised curriculums making specific provision for instruction in the law school by economists and sociologists who are not lawyers. The University of Michigan faculty has long recognized the problem of relating present-day law to the increasingly complex and ever-changing social and economic life. It has been felt, however, that the law student should secure the foundations of his economic and social background in his prelegal college work under the guidance of trained economists and sociologists. Then, when he enters upon the study of law, he will be prepared to study and understand the economic and sociological implications of every case. It is felt that this approach can best be directed by those who are primarily trained as law teachers, but who are fully awake to and informed as to the problems of society to which the law is to be applied, and in which it finds its reason for existence, rather than by instructors primarily trained in other branches who give separate courses in the Law School. The aim in the Law School is to treat the law and the life in which it operates, not as things separate and distinct, but as one, the law existing solely for the contribution it makes to the life to which it is applied. Every recitation hour, therefore, is devoted to the law, not as an isolated thing, but as part and parcel of the conditions for which alone its existence and form are justified. Every professor in every course is an instructor not only in law but also in such subjects as economics and sociology as well.
Graduate instruction. — The student was
