The profession of the Law is, of course, an honourable profession, and it is doubtless believed by its apologists to be a useful profession, on the whole; but a body of lawyers somewhat less numerous, and with a lower average proficiency in legal subtleties and expedients, would unquestionably be quite as serviceable to the community at large as a larger number of such men with a higher efficiency; at the same time they would be less costly, both as to initial cost and as to the expenses of maintenance that come of that excessive volume and retardation of litigation due to an extreme facility in legal technique on the part of the members of the bar.
It will also be found true that both the schools of law and those of commerce, and in a less degree the other vocational schools, serve the advantage of one class as against another. In the measure in which these schools accomplish what they aim at, they increase the advantage of such men as already have some advantage over the common run. The instruction is half-way gratuitous; that is the purpose of placing these schools on a foundation or maintaining them at the public expense. It is presumed to be worth more than its cost to the students. The fees and other incidental expenses do not nearly cover the cost of the schools; otherwise no foundation or support from the public funds would be required, and the universities would have no colourable excuse for going into this field. But even if the instruction and facilities offered by these schools are virtually gratuitous, yet the fees and incidental expenses, together with the expenditure of time and the cost of living required for a residence at the schools, make up so considerable an item of expense as effectually to exclude the majority of those young men who might otherwise be inclined to avail themselves of these advantages. In effect, none can afford the time and expense of this business training, whether in Commerce, Law, or the other professions, except those who are already possessed of something more than the average wealth or average income; and none, presumably, take kindly to this training, in commerce or law, e.g., except those who already have something more than the average taste and aptitude for business traffic, or who have a promising "opening"of this character in sight. So that this training that is desired to serve the private advantage of commercial students is, for the greater part, extended to a select body of young men; only such applicants being eligible, in effect, as do not on any showing need this gratuity.
In proportion to the work which it undertakes, the College of Commerce is -- or it would be if it lived up to its professions -- the most expensive branch of the university corporation. In this connection the case of the law school offers a significant object-lesson of what to expect in the further growth of the schools of commerce. The law school is of older standing and maturer growth, at the same time that its aims and circumstances are of much the same general character as those that condition the schools of commerce; and it is therefore to be taken as indicating something of what must be looked for in the college of commerce if it is to do the work for which it is established. The indications, then, are (a) that the instruction in the field of commercial training may be expected gradually to fall into a more rigidly drawn curriculum, which will discard all irrelevant theoretical excursions and will diverge more and more widely from the ways of scientific inquiry, in proportion as experience and tactful organization bring the school to a maturer insight into its purposes and a more consistent adherence to its chief purpose of training expert men for the higher business practice; and (b)that the personnel of its staff must increasingly be drawn from among the successful businessmen, rather than from men of academic training.
Among the immediate consequences of this latter feature, as shown in the example of the law schools, is a relatively high cost. The schedule of salaries in the law schools attached to the universities, e. g., runs appreciably higher than in the university proper. the reason being, of course, that men suitable efficiently to serve as instructors and directive officials in a school of law are almost necessarily men whose services in the practice of the law would command a high rate of pay. What is needed in the law school (as in the school of commerce) is men who are practically conversant with the ways and means of earning large fees, -- that being the point of it all. Indeed, the scale of pay which their services will command in the open market is the chief and ordinary test of their fitness for the work of instruction. The salaries paid these men of affairs, who have so been diverted to the service of the schools, is commonly some multiple of the salary assigned to men of a comparable ability and attainments in the academic work proper. The academic rank assigned them is also necessarily, and for the like reason, commensurate with their higher scale of pay; all of which throws an undue preponderance of discretion and authority into the hands of these men of affairs, and so introduces a disproportionate bias in favour of unscientific and unscholarly aims and ideals in the university at large.
