USA > Pennsylvania > The twentieth century bench and bar of Pennsylvania, volume II > Part 72
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looking to the prompt and efficient admin- istration of justice, the promotion of legis- lation for that purpose, and the mainten- anee of the elub house and library for the use of its members."
THE HIRST FREE LAW LIBRARY.
This library was founded in 1884 under the provisions of the will of Lucas Ilirst, a member of the Philadelphia bar. By his will he appointed one of the trust companies of Philadelphia his trustee, and gave it all his estate in trust to pay eertain annuities and to apply the remaining ineome "for a sep- arate and exelusive law library entirely in- dependent of the present law library of Phil- adelphia, and in no way to be under their control or interferenee, for the use of stu- dents and lawyers free of charge." By the terms of his will, he further indieated that if his trustees should deem it for the best in- terests of the library, his preferenee was to have it continued at the site of his old home and offiee, No. 629 Walnut street. The trus- tees fitted out two rooms on the first floor of that building as the library. The first pur- ehase of books by the trustees was made in 1885 when a portion of the library of the late Henry Baldwin was purehased. This eolleetion of books formed a nueleus around which the library has grown to its present dimensions. The library was formally opened to the publie on April 24, 1885, and has from that time been open to the publie eontinu- ously.
In 1888 the library was removed to the ninth floor of the Drexel building, and it has remained there from that time until the present. It oceupies a commodious room and is open daily. Members of the bar and reg- istered students of law are entitled to use the library free of charge. The library, from its first beginning, has continued to inerease both by gifts from friends and by purchases continuously made by its trustees, until it now contains in the neighborhood of 12,000
volumes, including a fairly complete set of American as well as English reports and a large number of text books.
The members of the bar find this library very useful, and have patronized it exten- sively. It is regretted that, doubtless, owing to the limited finanees of the trust, the li- brary is not open at night. If it could be opened evenings, the usefulness of this li- brary to the members of the bar would be largely inereased. The members of the Phil- adelphia bar may consider themselves espe- eially fortunate on having three sueh eom- plete law libraries in three different parts of the eity-the Hirst library, at Fifth and Chestnut streets, the Law Association li- brary at eity hall, and the Law School li- brary in west Philadelphia.
UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL.
The law school of the University of Penn- sylvania has, sinee its ineeption, been inti- mately eonneeted with the history of the bar of Philadelphia. The oldest law sehool in the country, it has had an existence sinee 1790. Connected with it either as professors, or as trustees of the university, were some of the greatest members of our profession, including such men as James Wilson, George Sharswood, George M. Wharton, James Par- son, J. I. Clark Hare, Peter MeCall, John Sergeant, Horaee Binney, William M. Mere- dith and Eli K. Priee.
The University of Pennsylvania was es- tablished as the direet effort of Benjamin Franklin, and in July, 1753, a eharter was obtained from Thomas and Riehard Penn, the proprietors, und -r the name and title of the trustees of the Academy and Charitable School in the province of Pennsylvania. Sub- sequently, in 1765, a medieal school was es- tablished, and in 1799 this institution, to- gether with a rival institution, beeame the University of Pennsylvania.
In the meantime there had been some agi- tation for the establishment of the law
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school, and in 1790 Charles Smith, the com- piler of Smith's Laws of Pennsylvania, made a proposition before the board of trustees to open a law school. No action seems to have been taken with his proposition, but a short while afterwards, in August, Mr. James Wilson was elected professor of law, and on December 15th of the same year, the introductory lecture was delivered before the school by Professor Wilson. President Washington and his eabinet, both houses of Congress, the supreme executive council, the members of the assembly, the mayor, alder- man and common councilman, the judges of the courts and prominent citizens of the community attended in a body. Mrs. Wash- ington and a number of other distinguished ladies filled the gallery. Professor Wilson delivered a course of lectures in the winter of 1790 and '91. The second course was de- livered during the next winter, but it was never coneluded. Thereafter no leeture was delivered, though Judge Wilson continued to hold the chair of professor of laws.
After the death of Professor Wilson the chair remained vacant for many years, and no action was taken to renew the law school and eleet a professor of law until 1817, when Charles Willing Hare, uncle of Hon. J. I. Clark Hare, a brilliant and successful law- yer, was elected to fill the professorship, and he made a plan upon which to conduct his courses. He lectured, however, only one sea- son. Shortly after his becoming professor, he had the great misfortune of the loss of his reason, which he never regained, and shortly afterward died.
Again the law school existed but as a name without a reality until 1850, when Hon. George Sharswood was made professor of law, and accepted the appointment. He as- sumed his duties in the fall of the year, de- livered his first introductory lectures on September 30th, in the hall of the university buildings at Ninth and Chestnut streets, the site of the present post office.
The revival of the department awakened the interest of the community in the law school, which was thenceforth destined to continue to grow and prosper. Professor Sharswood was at that time president judge of the district court. It was therefore deemed necessary, in order to successfully continue the studies and not to make the duties of Judge Sharswood too arduous, to ereate a faculty for the school, and so to Judge Sharswood, Peter MeCall and E. Spencer Miller were added. Sharswood was ehosen dean of faculty. On July 22, 1852, the first degree of bachelor of laws was con- ferred upon those students who completed two courses of law under Professor Shars- wood.
The law school continued to prosper. More professors were chosen and more depart- ments were created from time to time, and more studies offered to the students. In 1868, when Professor Sharswood was elected as one of the associate justiees of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, lie presented his res- ignation as professor. E. Spencer Miller was chosen dean to succeed him and continued to serve the law school in that capacity until his resignation in 1872.
Mr. E. Coppee Mitchell was chosen dean of the law school to sueceed Mr. Miller and acted in that capacity for many years until his sudden death in 1884. Mr. Bispham and Mr. C. Stuart Patterson were successively heads of the departments. It beeame evident, however, that the duties of the dean required of him that he shall give his whole time to the affairs of the law school for the best success of the school. Accordingly, in 1896, Mr. William Draper Lewis was chosen to be Dean of the law school, with the under- standing that he should devote his time to the school. Mr. Lewis is the present dean of the sehool.
Mr. Lewis was, at the time of his election to the office, professor of International Law at the Wharton school of the University of
Flarrall Brewster
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Pennsylvania, and though seareely thirty years of age he had already won distinction as a writer on legal and economie subjects. He had published Lewis' Edition of Blaek- stone's Commentaries, and together with Mr. George Wharton Pepper, a member of our bar, and the Hon. A. Sidney Biddle, professor of law of the law sehool, he had published Pepper and Lewis' Digest of Laws of Penn- sylvania.
After a wandering existenee, the law school is now situated in the new law sehool building at Thirty-fourth and Chestnut streets. This building is situated near the university grounds. It was completed and dedicated in February of 1900. The new building is said to be the largest in the world, devoted exclusively to the study of law. On the first floor are the lecture rooms; Priee Hall for the Debating Union, the Moot Courts and the offiees of Dean and Bursar. On the second floor are two large rooms, ealled Sharswood Hall and Mckean Hall, respectively, for the use of the students for study. Between these halls is the Biddle Library which is complete in its reports and text books.
There is a conversation room and a room for the use of the American Law Register and Review, the oldest legal periodieal in this eountry. This periodical has been re- cently adopted by the law sehool as its organ, and is eondueted by a Board of Ed- itors, elected from the student body of the sehool.
The requirements for a degree under Pro- fessor Sharswood was two courses of lec- tures. Under the admininstration of Dean Mitehell, the requirements were raised to a course of two years and an examination on the subjects. Subsequently the course was lengthened to three years.
In 1875 the Court of Common Pleas and Orphan's Court of Philadelphia adopted the rule that a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with the degree of Bachelor of
Laws upon eomplying with the conditions as to preliminary examination and registration may be admitted as an attorney of these eourts. The sehool to-day is in prosperous condition. Under the present dean, the school has entered into a new era of develop- ment. The requirements for entranee have been raised with the immediate result of get- ting a higher grade of students, so far as intellectual development is eoneerned. With a faculty of seventeen professors, instruetors and a student body of three hundred and eighty-six men, the law school of the uni- versity has just elosed its scholastie year in full measure, prosperous and with a perma- nent and lasting reputation of a sehool, af- fording an ample seientific and thorough preparation for the bar, not only of Phila- delphia and Pennsylvania, but of the other states in the Union.
TEMPLE COLLEGE LAW SCHOOL.
Before the opening of the University Law sehool in 1850, the almost universal method of preparing for the bar was by spending a eertain length of time with a praetieing attorney and reading law under his direc- tions. Thus by far the greatest number of our attorneys have prepared themselves for the practice of the law. We have seen that during the first eentury of the history of Philadelphia, many gentlemen of the bar received their legal education in the Inns of the eourt of England. After Pennsylvania established independent courts, that method of preparation for the bar fell into disuse and soon was entirely discontinued.
In the meantime, in the New England states and in New York City, a large per- centage of the members of the legal profes- sion received their preparation for the bar at the law sehools of Yale, Harvard and the other universitites which had law depart- ments. Of late years it has beeome the de- inand of those seeking to prepare themselves to engage in the profession of the law in this
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great city, that an educational institution should have supervision of their legal train- ing, rather than leave it, in a haphazard manner, to a preceptor who may not be com- petent or disposed to give the young as- pirant for the bar the proper and necessary guidance for acquiring a legal education.
We have seen how, to satisfy this demand, the law department of the University of Pennsylvania had been established, and with what great success that institution has met since its organization under Judge Shars- wood. The opening of the Temple law school took place more recently, and in the further pursuance of the desire for a scienti- fic and systematic preparation for the prac- tice of the law.
In the city of New York and perhaps in other large cities, certain of the law schools offer courses of law conducted in evening classes. This is done in order to afford an opportunity to those who are desirous to prepare for the bar, but who, by reason of their financial situation, are not able to pur- sue their studies without at the same time pursuing their occupation in order to earn a livelihood.
It is with the same idea that in this city, at the earnest solicitation of many persons, the Temple Law school was founded and con- ducted as a department of the Temple col- lege, a worthy institution established by Dr. Russell H. Conwell, the pastor of the Temple of this city.
This school was opened in 1895, and since its inception, has graduated from its school three classes. The plan of this institution is to afford a course of studies in prepara- tion for the bar, for a period of four years. The classes are conducted in the evenings. During the last year of this course, the can- didate for a degree is to register as a student at law in the office of an attorney as a pre- ceptor. At the end of four years he is to offer himself for an examination for the bar, and after he successfully goes through this
ordeal and is admitted to the bar, he receives his diploma from the college.
By Samuel M. Israeli, Ph.B. (Yale) LL.B. (U. of P.) Member of the Philadelphia bar.
Author of "Additional Liability of Mem- bers of a Corporation."
Theodore Cuyler, a native of Poughkeep- sie, N. Y., the subject of this sketch, was born in 1819. His father, who was a promi- nent Presbyterian clergyman, removed with his family to Philadelphia in 1834. Young Cuyler was graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1838, and four years later was admitted to the bar and soon rose to promience in his profession, acquiring a large and lucrative practice, and it has been justly and truly said of him that "he was a natural lawyer to whom the most arduous and difficult labors and conquests at the bar seemed comparatively easy. In quickness of comprehension and fertility of mental resources he was rarely equaled and never surpassed." As general counsel for the Pennsylvania Railroad company his services extending over a period of many years were well-nigh invaluable.
Formerly a Whig in politics, Mr. Cuyler became a Democrat upon the dismemberment of the Whig party, but his devotion to his profession and his aversion to entering po- litical contests led him to decline on several occasions nominations to the state legisla- ture and to Congress. He, however, was elected a member of the select council of Philadelphia, and served as its president and also served as a member of the state constitutional convention in which body he exercised a marked influence. He also served as a member of the Philadelphia park com- mission and as a director and controller of the public schools. As a citizen his life was in the highest degree honorable and useful, and, with all, he possessed social graces that made him everywhere and always the true gentleman. Mr. Cuyler was devoted to the interests of the church of which his father
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had been pastor, and was an active and in- fluential leader in the erection of its new house of worship, regarded as one of the finest architectural structures of Philadel- phia.
Mr. Cuyler departed this life at Philadel- pliia on April 5, 1876, at the age of fifty-seven years. But he had wrought well, and his death was universally mourned as that of an upright citizen, a good man and a true friend.
F. Carroll Brewster was born in Philadel- phia, in the old city proper, May 15, 1825. In early boyhood he was regarded as bright and promising. He was sent to the Old Friends' select school in Philadelphia, where he was carefully trained and rapidly fitted for college and soon entered the University of Pennsylvania. The young student dis- played wonderful industry and aptness for learning, and in 1841, when about sixteen years of age, he was graduated with honors. In 1868 he was elected president of the Alum- ni society of the university, which office he filled for a number of years. In June, 1871, he was the orator at the laying of the cor- ner stone of the new university buildings in West Philadelphia, and honored by that institution with the degree of Doctor of Laws. At the completion of his college course he immediately commenced the study of law in his father's office, and was adınit- ted to the Philadelphia bar September 7, 1844. He commanded marked success in his profession and his position was soon at the head of the bar of Pennsylvania. His practice was largely confined to the civil courts, but in his early history he won a reputation as a criminal lawyer. During his career he managed cases with an application and careful study that rarely failed to se- cure his purpose, and his first great criminal snits were red-letter days in his legal life.
Until 1862 Mr. Brewster had held no po- litical office. He had been repeatedly pressed for nomination to high public trusts, but de- clined, until without any consultation with
Mr. Brewster, the Republican party nomin- ated him for city solicitor, and he was elected by a large majority and sworn into office January 1 of that year. Soon after his in- duction into office he was called upon to argue the validity of the bequests to the city of Philadelphia under the will of the late Stephen Girard, over which much litigation ensued and which Mr. Brewster carried through to a brilliant success. Following closely on this came the Chestnut street bridge case, which he also brought to a fa- vorable issue, and during his public services in behalf of Philadelphia Mr. Brewster con- ducted also many private causes.
In 1862 he was nominated and elected city solicitor and during his term in this office represented the city in a great many impor- tant cases.
At the close of his first term as city so- licitor, in 1865, Mr. Brewster was re-elected, but his second term was very brief.
An additional judge was required in the Philadelphia courts and the legislature pro- vided for the election of another member of the judiciary. To this position Mr. Brewster was elected in October, 1866, and as judge Ire presided over many celebrated trials and his judicial record was pure; he was eminently a great jurist; his rulings in all cases were noted for their justice, clearness and sound- ness; his opinions were remarkable for their research and learning, and his manner toward members of the bar was kind, conr- teous and dignified. After serving, with great satisfaction to the people of Philadel- phia, as judge for more than three years, he was appointed by Governor Geary attorney general of the commonwealth. This office he filled during the years 1869, 1870, 1871 and 1872, and it is noteworthy that the State Supreme Court Reports contain more than thirty "important causes" which he argued, as attorney general, before the Supreme Court. Upon his retirement from that of- fice he at once resumed the active practice
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of his profession, and was concerned, up to the moment of his death, in eases involving great interests.
On September 13, 1869, on the organiza- tion of the board of city trusts, he was eleet- ed its solicitor, in which position he eon- tinued until his death.
Judge Brewster enjoyed a large popular- ity as a law preceptor. Upwards of ninety persons studied law in his offiees and have been admitted to practice, and in 1894 his students organized as a corporation under the name of "The Associated Students of F. Carroll Brewster." This organization is strong and promises to exist as long as its members live. In the midst of his aetive life he found time to publish many legal works of great interest. Judge Brewster was a great traveler, and few seetions of the liab- itable world were not visited by him. In 1887 he visted the Holy Land, and in 1895 took a trip around the world, and published, upon his return, a brief account of his travels under the title, "From Independenee Hall Around the World."
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In November, 1895, When the Orphans' eourt took possession of the new quarters in the public buildings, he was designated, with Hampton L. Carson, to offer the congratula- tions of the bar, and was the orator at the unveiling of the tablet erected in Girard college to the memory of the late Stephen Girard.
Judge Brewster was a elassieal student and linguist of no mean ability. He was familiar with Latin, Greek, Freneh, Ger- man, Spanish and Italian dialect. Judge Brewster was a social man, and it was a great pleasure to him to bring the members of the bar into eloser social re- lations. During the last twenty years of his life he gave many princely entertainments gathering upon occasions two or three hundred of the members of the bar together at his board. This gave rise to the organiza- tion of the "Laywers' Club," which was
incorporated in 1892, with Judge Brewster as its president, which position he held at the time of his death. He was also a mem- ber of the Union League, the Art Club, of Philadelphia ; the Historical Society of Penn- sylvania, the State Bar Association, the Law Association of Philadelphia and the only honorary member of the Five o'Clock club of Philadelphia. His life was a record of eon- tinuous success. He shone with conspieuous light in every branehi of his profession. He was found equal to and honored in every position to which he was called. His knowl- edge of the seienee of jurisprudenee was profound and extensive, his arrangement of details, clear, logical and eonvineing. He was a lawyer of consummate ability and ad- dress. His personal manner in the trial of a case was courteous, patient and considerate. He was easy, affable, self-possessed and equal to any emergeney.
Mr. Brewster died at Charlotte, N. C., De- cember 30, 1898, and left surviving him three sons and two daughters. A formal announee- ment of his death was made in all the courts and appropriate minutes were ordered to be entered upon the records. His death was mourned as a universal loss to the com- munity.
James E. Gowen, Esq., solicitor for the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad company, died February 16, 1885, at the age of 56, at his home at Mount Airy. Mr. Gowen was a brother of Franklin B. Gowen and son of James Gowen of Mount Airy, where he was born and lived all his life. He studied law in the office of St. George Tueker Campbell, who was then solieitor for the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad company, and who, it is said, was the first attorney at law known by the distinctive title of "Railroad Lawyer." Mr. Gowen was admitted to the Philadelphia bar in 1851, and when Mr. Campbell died, during the war, sueceeded to the position which he held at the time of his death. His position as solieitor naturally brought him
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into great prominence, by reason of the liti- gation in which the Reading company had been involved, and he aequired a very high reputation as a corporation lawyer. Outside of the prominence which his official position brought him his life was a very retired one, his tastes being to a large degree literary and domestic and opposed to publie display. He was noted for his amiability and for the assistance and encouragement he gave to young members of the bar. He never entered polities, though the opportunity was afforded him in 1876, when he declined the Demo- eratic nomination of judge of the Court of Common Pleas against Judge Yerkes, the Republiean nominee. Mr. Gowen's death was aseribed to nervous prostration caused by overapplication to the complication in which the railroad company was involved.
Samuel Baird Huey, president of the Board of Public Education, and one of the leading members of the Philadelphia bar, was born in Pittsburgh, Pa., January 7, 1843, and died in Philadelphia November 21, 1901. His paternal aneestors were Scotch Phesbyteri- ans, who came to Ameriea in 1763, and were stanch patriots during the war of the Revo- lution. His great-grandfather fell on the battlefield of Trenton. Ilis paternal grand- parents were John Thompson Hucy and Mar- garet Culbertson and his father was Samuel Culbertson Huey, who, for a period of six- teen years, was president of the Penn Mu- tual Life Insurance company. He was edu- cated in private and public schools in this city, graduating at Princeton college with honor in the class of 1863, at which time he was awarded prizes for oratory and debate, and in 1866 he received the degree of A. M. He was always fond of athletie sports and at eollege he was captain of the cricket team and played on the baseball nine. From col- lege he went into the service of the United States as captain's clerk on the San Jacinto. In 1864 he was appointed ensign, and the following year assistant paymaster. He was
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