James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist [4]
will prove of interest. The writer says: "It is with sincerest pleasure I find my brother Samuel has well employed his time during his residence at home. I am sure you don't think the time long he is spending in his present course of studies; since it is past all doubt they are not only ornamental and useful, but indispensably necessary preparatories for the figure I hope one day, for his and your sake, as well as my own, to see him make in the profession he is determined to pursue. I am sure the year and a half I spent in the same way, after leaving the academy, was as well spent as any part of my life; and I shall always lament I did not take a year or two further for more general inquiries in the arts and sciences, before I sat down to the laborious study of the laws of my country.
"My brother's judgment can't at present be supposed to be ripe enough for so severe an exercise as the proper reading and well digesting the common law. Very sure I am, if he would stay a year or two from the time of his degree, before he begins with the law, he will be able to make better progress in one week, than he could now, without a miracle, in six. Early and short clerkships, and a premature rushing into practice, without a competent knowledge in the theory of law, have blasted the hopes, and ruined the expectations, formed by the parents of most of the students in the profession, who have fallen within my observation for these ten or fifteen years past."
The writer of this well-timed communication then adds in proof of his position, the names of several distinguished jurists who postponed the beginning of their legal studies, or at least their legal practice, to a time of life quite beyond the conventional student period. Mr. Otis then declares his conviction that a young man may well procrastinate his legal studies until he shall have attained the age of thirty or even of forty years. He declares his belief that such postponement will as a rule lead to better result than can be attained by a youth who begins at twenty, however brilliant his genius may be.
This view of the case was with James Otis both theory and practice. He began his legal studies in 1745. In that year he became a law student under the tuition of Jeremiah Gridley who at that time was already regarded as one of the most able and accomplished lawyers in Massachusetts. Preceptor and student were at the first in accord in their political and social principles. At the time of the young man's law course, Gridley was a member of the General Court of Massachusetts. He belonged to the party called Whig; for the political jargon of Great Britain had infected the Americans also, and they divided according to the names and principles of the British partisans of the period.
Judge Gridley, while he remained on the bench, took sides with the colonists in their oncoming contention with the mother country. Afterwards, however, by accepting the appointment of Attorney General he became one of the king's officers, and it was in this relation that he was subsequently brought face to face with his distinguished pupil in the trial of the most remarkable case which preceded the Revolutions.
Mr. Otis devoted two years of time to his legal studies before beginning the practice of his profession. The study of law at that time was much more difficult than at the present day. The student was obliged to begin de novo with the old statutes and decisions, and to make up the science for himself by a difficult induction, which not many young men were able to do successfully.
Law text-books were virtually unknown. Otis did not even have access to "Blackstone's Commentaries." No authoritative works on evidence or pleading existed in the English language.
The student must get down his Acts of Parliament, his decisions of the King's Bench, his Coke, his black-letter dissertations on the common law, and out of these construct the best he could a legal system for himself. To this work Mr. Otis devoted himself from 1745 to 1747, after which he left the office of
"My brother's judgment can't at present be supposed to be ripe enough for so severe an exercise as the proper reading and well digesting the common law. Very sure I am, if he would stay a year or two from the time of his degree, before he begins with the law, he will be able to make better progress in one week, than he could now, without a miracle, in six. Early and short clerkships, and a premature rushing into practice, without a competent knowledge in the theory of law, have blasted the hopes, and ruined the expectations, formed by the parents of most of the students in the profession, who have fallen within my observation for these ten or fifteen years past."
The writer of this well-timed communication then adds in proof of his position, the names of several distinguished jurists who postponed the beginning of their legal studies, or at least their legal practice, to a time of life quite beyond the conventional student period. Mr. Otis then declares his conviction that a young man may well procrastinate his legal studies until he shall have attained the age of thirty or even of forty years. He declares his belief that such postponement will as a rule lead to better result than can be attained by a youth who begins at twenty, however brilliant his genius may be.
This view of the case was with James Otis both theory and practice. He began his legal studies in 1745. In that year he became a law student under the tuition of Jeremiah Gridley who at that time was already regarded as one of the most able and accomplished lawyers in Massachusetts. Preceptor and student were at the first in accord in their political and social principles. At the time of the young man's law course, Gridley was a member of the General Court of Massachusetts. He belonged to the party called Whig; for the political jargon of Great Britain had infected the Americans also, and they divided according to the names and principles of the British partisans of the period.
Judge Gridley, while he remained on the bench, took sides with the colonists in their oncoming contention with the mother country. Afterwards, however, by accepting the appointment of Attorney General he became one of the king's officers, and it was in this relation that he was subsequently brought face to face with his distinguished pupil in the trial of the most remarkable case which preceded the Revolutions.
Mr. Otis devoted two years of time to his legal studies before beginning the practice of his profession. The study of law at that time was much more difficult than at the present day. The student was obliged to begin de novo with the old statutes and decisions, and to make up the science for himself by a difficult induction, which not many young men were able to do successfully.
Law text-books were virtually unknown. Otis did not even have access to "Blackstone's Commentaries." No authoritative works on evidence or pleading existed in the English language.
The student must get down his Acts of Parliament, his decisions of the King's Bench, his Coke, his black-letter dissertations on the common law, and out of these construct the best he could a legal system for himself. To this work Mr. Otis devoted himself from 1745 to 1747, after which he left the office of