The Gladsome Light of Jurisprudence

Michael H. Hoeflich, The Gladsome Light of Jurisprudence: Learning the Law in England and the United States in the 18th and 19th Centuries (1988).

From the publisher: Jurist of the 18th and 19th centuries were often in disagreement as to the proper method of instructing students who wished to take up the practice of law. This volume distills the essential elements of the controversy over legal education and offers many articles and papers on the topic that are no longer available in print. A compilation of seventeen essays by influential legal scholars of the period, it presents arguments for and against the educations approaches that dominated English and American legal study for more than two centuries. Dean Hoeflich's introduction examines the historical and legal context that formed the background of the controversy. Many of the essays that follow are polemical contributions to the debate on the relative merits of apprenticeship and academic training--the methods of legal education that were commonly practiced. Some authors favored a pragmatic, non-elitist training, others recommended greater emphasis on systematization and method through the teaching of logic, moral philosophy, or Roman law. Still others proposed a blending of approaches or altogether new types of legal education--some of which were frankly utopian. Several essays focus on the need to develop American legal education independent of English models. Renowned jurists such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and William Blackstone are represented, together with lesser known legal thinkers credited with substantial or original contributions to the field. The editor provides supplementary notes on the authors, a bibliography, and an index.