iv*

1891

UCSB LIBRARY

A TRIBUTE TO

THEODORE WOOLSEY DWIGHT, LLD.

PRESENTED ON HIS RESIGNATION FROM
THE WARDENSHIP OF THE COLUMBIA
COLLEGE LAW SCHOOL, 1891

EDITED BY
FREDERIC J. SWIFT

Imicfcerbocfter press
1891

BY
FREDERIC J. SWIFT

Ube fmicfeerbocfeer press

Printed and Bound by
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

To DR. THEODORE W. DWIGHT :

A few plain words expressive of generous regard toward one we hold
in the kindliest reverence cannot but carry conviction, to him of whom
they are spoken, of their deep sincerity.

And in presenting these tributes from eminent graduates of Columbia
Law School, I perform a duty, the pleasure of which can be measured
only by the sympathy, tenderness, and love which your students have
invariably and will always entertain for you. The cherished memories
of the years spent under your guidance are sweet to all.

Others would have tendered their tributes of praise to this testi-
monial but for the necessities of their business engagements. It is but
fair to them to record that without exception they expressed their
loyalty and gratitude to their friend and professor, and deeply regretted
their inability to acknowledge in this way their appreciation of that
patience and gentleness which you have ever accorded to your students.
The fruits of that patience and gentleness are distributed over our entire
country, and will long remain a testimonial to your rare influence.

It is in this spirit that these tributes are presented to you. And in
the name of all those whom you have taught manliness as well as law
I wish you health and happiness for many years to come. As you
have shown kindliness toward others, so may your life be lengthened.

FREDERIC JOSEPH SWIFT.

COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL,
May 10, 1891.

CONTENTS

COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL A SKETCH OF ITS HISTORY.

BY PROFESSOR GEORGE CHASE I

TRIBUTE OF JUDGE WILLIAM J. WALLACE 8

TRIBUTE OF HON. JOSEPH R. HAWLEY IO

TRIBUTE OF JUDGE D. P. BALDWIN, LL.D. II

TRIBUTE OF EDMUND WETMORE 13

TRIBUTE OF HENRY HOLT 1 5

TRIBUTE OF FRANKLIN MACVEIGH 1 6

TRIBUTE OF JAMES RICHARDS 1 8

TRIBUTE OF GEORGE W. VAN SICLEN 19

TRIBUTE OF WILLIAM C. WITTER 2O

TRIBUTE OF MORRIS W. SEYMOUR 22

TRIBUTE OF HENRY R. BEEKMAN . 24

TRIBUTE OF GEN. HENRY EDWIN TREMAIN . . . . .26

TRIBUTE OF CHARLES W. DAYTON 29

TRIBUTE OF MORRIS M. BUDLONG $1

TRIBUTE OF JAMES L. BISHOP .34

TRIBUTE OF R. WAYNE PARKER 36

TRIBUTE OF WILLIAM D. FOULKE 38

TRIBUTE OF HON. OSCAR S. STRAUS 40

TRIBUTE OF JUDGE WILLIAM H. DEWITT 42

TRIBUTE OF WILLIAM P. FOWLER 44

TRIBUTE OF WILLIAM B. HORNBLOWER 45

TRIBUTE OF HON. PERRY BELMONT 47

TRIBUTE OF DWIGHT ARVEN JONES 48

TRIBUTE OF ETHELBERT D. WARFIELD 5<D

LETTERS OF REGRET FROM

JUDGE HENRY BISCHOFF, JR 52

JUDGE LE BARON B. COLT . . . . . . 52

JUDGE MORGAN J. O'BRIEN 53

W. M. IVINS 53

Columbia College %aw School
H Sfcetcb of its Distort

professor (Seorge Cbase.

The history of Columbia College Law School is, in reality, the history
of a method of instruction and of the educational work of a great teacher.
For, as " man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which
he possesseth," so the life of an educational institution does not consist
in its buildings or grounds or endowment or income, but rather in the
imparting of knowledge, in the training and disciplining of the minds
of its students, in developing their full measure of capacity, and inspiring
them with true ideals. To the accomplishment of such results in the
most effectual and useful way possible, this School was dedicated from its
birth. Its aim was to benefit, as best it could, students of law, and not
only them, but also the legal profession, of which they were to become a
part, and thus to benefit society at large. For who can doubt that the
welfare of society is deeply involved in the methods of administering
justice and in the training of ministers of justice ? And that a well-trained
lawyer, thoroughly equipped with the knowledge of his profession, and thus
well qualified to give sound and judicious counsel to his clients imbued,
moreover, with high principles of action is properly to be termed a
" minister of justice," is beyond question. The success of the Columbia
School, in its purpose to train and develop such lawyers, is well attested
in the lives of many of its graduates, who hold to-day positions of the
highest honor and influence at the bar or on the bench.

" Mere practising lawyers " are sometimes, nowadays, spoken of with
seeming contempt, as if the unceasing absorption of legal knowledge and
the development of legal pundits should be the great ideal, rather than
to train lawyers who should make their learning of some practical value.
But the Columbia School has purposely sought to make its instruction
theoretical and at the same time practical. That its students might be
competent to give wise counsel, the principles and reasons of the law
must be carefully instilled into their minds, and their capacity must be

THE DWIGHT TRIBUTE.

cultivated to discern and understand sound legal theory and philosophy.
Theory and practice have never, therefore, been severed, but the one has
been the handmaid of the other.

" Heaven does with us as we with torches do,
Not light them for themselves ; for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, 't were all alike
As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched,
But to fine issues, nor Nature never lends
The smallest scruple of her excellence,
But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines
Herself the glory of a creditor,
Both thanks and use."

Heartily glad are all the instructors in this School that the torches
here lighted have not been lighted for themselves, but have shone out to
guide many a troubled wanderer, and save from many a fall. And as
to men here trained, their virtues have " gone forth " of them, and they
have returned in abundant tribute " both thanks and use."

Such have been the purposes and ideals of Columbia College Law
School from its origin down to the present time. Its external history is
briefly told. It was first established in 1858, and Professor Theodore W.
Dwight, who prior to that time had been a professor of law in Hamilton
College, was placed in sole charge of the department of instruction in
municipal law. The School found its first home in the Historical Society
building, at the corner of Second Avenue and Eleventh Street. After-
wards, as the number of students increased from year to year, it was
removed, first to 37 Lafayette Place, a few years later to 8 Great Jones
Street, and finally, after a few years more, to the grounds of Columbia
College on East 49th Street, where it has since been located. Until
1873 the entire work of instruction in every topic of private law devolved
upon Professor Dwight, as did also the business management of the
School to a very large extent, and also the enlargement and supervision
of the library, etc. But notwithstanding this great amount of labor
undertaken by him, he did not seem overburdened by it, and it was not
until 1873 that he was in any measure relieved of these manifold duties.
In that year the writer of the present article became Instructor in
Municipal Law, and took charge of some of the topics in this depart-
ment. This office of Instructor was changed in 1875 to that of Assistant
Professor of Municipal Law, and since that time there have been several
new professorships created and various changes in their incumbents.
Thus in 1878 five professorships were established : (i) of the Law of
Contracts, Maritime and Admiralty Law ; this has been held by Professor

COLUMBIA COLLEGE LAW SCHOOL.

Dwight down to 1891 ; (2) of Real Estate and Equity Jurisprudence,
held by Professor John A. Dillon from 1878 to 1882, and by Professor
Benjamin F. Lee, from 1882 to 1890; (3) of Criminal Law, Torts, and
Procedure, held by Professor George Chase from 1878 to 1891 ; (4) of
Constitutional History and International Law, held by Professor John
W. Burgess till the present time; (5) of Medical Jurisprudence, held by
Professor John Ordronaux till the present. Of late years, also, much
valuable work, especially in the way of reviews, has been done by Prize
Tutors, of whom there are three, each of whom is elected for three years.

The full course of study in the School occupied until very recently a
period of two years, but in 1888 it was determined to extend the limit to
three years, and the class which graduates this year (1891) has been the
first to come under this new regulation. For many years (from 1860 to
1877) tne diploma given by the Law School, and conferring the degree of
LL. B., entitled its recipient to admission to the bar of New York State,
but since 1877 the ^ aw nas undergone a change in this respect, and an
applicant for admission to the bar must undergo an examination before
the Supreme Court, which is conducted by a committee of lawyers ap-
pointed by the court. During its early career, also, students were
admitted to the Law School without any preliminary examination, but
for many years past such an examination has been required, and has
been useful in excluding a class of students too poorly qualified for
legal study. By thus guarding the portals of the School as to those
seeking entrance, and by subjecting candidates for a degree upon grad-
uation to a careful and rigid examination, which must be passed to ob-
tain such degree, the constant effort has been to elevate the standard of
instruction and to make the degree more valuable.

The success of the Law School, if this be judged merely by the num-
bers in attendance, has been very noteworthy. The entire number of
students who have been connected with it from 1858 to 1891 exceeds
10,000. Among the lawyers of the New York City bar, fully one third
have been members of this School. And in the New York Bar Asso-
ciation, which is one of the leading organizations of lawyers in this
country, graduates of this School form the majority of its membership,
if the older members who were admitted to the bar before the Law
School came into existence are excluded from the count. And, more-
over, not a few of the graduates have won for themselves high distinction,
not simply in the practice of their profession, but also in judicial
positions, as ministers to foreign countries, as members of Congress and
of State legislatures, etc. For an institution which is yet but little more
than thirty years old, this has been well called a remarkable record.

THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

But the chief distinctive feature of this Law School has been its method
of teaching. This it is which more than anything else has attracted
such a multitude of students from year to year. The principles and
reasons upon which the method is based seem too plain and simple to
even admit of question. " The reason of the law is the life of the law,"
says an old maxim. Hence the law must be taught by vividly im-
pressing upon the student's mind the reasons upon which legal rules
and doctrines are based. He should be so instructed that he will view
the law as a system of principles, not as a mere aggregation of cases.
He comes to the study of law wholly unacquainted with technical legal
words and phrases, unversed in legal modes of thought or construction,
and to awaken his interest, stimulate his powers, and inform his mind,
whatever is taught him must be adapted to his comprehension and
must be presented in a form attractive to his mind. The fallacy that
one who knows a particular subject well can teach it well is far too rife
in our colleges and other educational institutions. Oftentimes such a
man seems to lose all comprehension of the difficulty which such a sub-
ject had for his own mind when he first began its study, and so he
never can get into close contact with the minds of his pupils, nor make
for them the crooked places straight. A teacher must be able not simply
to acquire knowledge but also to impart knowledge. He must realize
that for students who come to the study of what is for them a new and
untried branch of learning, simplicity and clearness of statement are es-
sential above all things else. He must understand and ever realize what
is their power of comprehension and adapt himself to their needs. He
must remember that what seems simple to him may be' far from simple
to them. Nor must he suppose, as do some instructors, that he is lower-
ing his standard of mental elevation, by cultivating simplicity and direct-
ness of statement. Professor Huxley has well said that to write the
primer of a science one must be master of the science. No teacher of
law, for example, can fail to remember the days of labor which it has
at times cost him to frame a simple definition or to state a single legal
principle clearly and accurately.

Professor Dwight's art of teaching has been the best illustration con-
ceivable of these principles. He must himself see things clearly, and
they must all fall into their proper relations before his mental vision,
or else his mind can never rest satisfied. Hence questions of difficulty
and perplexity are closely scanned by him on all sides, are subjected
to the keenest analysis which the powers of his mind can bring to bear
upon them, are examined in all their relations with other subjects, till at
last he comes out of darkness into light. Then however abstruse may be

COLUMBIA COLLEGE LAW SCHOOL.

the topic, however complex may be its elements, he states it so simply
and clearly, that the veriest tyro in the law can comprehend it, if not in
full measure, still up to the full limit of his own capacity. So the hap-
piest faculty of clear exposition is brought to bear upon it, and the
charm of felicitous illustration is added, that the way to the student's
mind may be most easily and effectually won.

What has just been said brings to view other principles, also, of the
method of instruction which Professor Dwight has always pursued, and
of which he has become so widely famed a master. That the rules and
doctrines of the common law must be deduced from the decisions of
the courts is matter of rudimentary legal knowledge. But shall, there-
fore, the student who knows little or nothing of law, and does not under-
stand the rules of legal interpretation and construction, be set at work
immediately upon the reported cases and told to deduce the principles of
law therefrom by himself? Is this the better way, or is rather the
trained jurist, who has had years of study and experience in the law,
better qualified than the student to deduce the principles from the cases,
to arrange these principles in their orderly philosophical relations, and
to present them in proper systematic form ? At the Columbia School,
during its past history, the latter view has been approved as the wisest
and soundest. Therefore the method of study has been to select a
treatise upon some particular legal topic, written by some expert in that
subject or by some eminent jurist, and to assign a suitable portion of
this from day to day for the student to commit to memory. Herein he
finds the principles of law deduced for him from the study of the reports
and statutes by one who is much better qualified than himself for this
task. He finds these principles stated in orderly arrangement and clas-
sification, so that he may properly appreciate their due significance. He
studies legal rules in their proper order of relative succession, and in
their proper relations to a comprehensive system, instead of viewing
them separately and independently. So the labor of days or weeks by
an author in the study of individual cases is happily presented to the
student in brief and compact form, and in a mode of statement much
more accurate and reliable than he would probably have attained by
himself from his own study of the decisions. Then the student, after
this preliminary study of the treatise, comes before the professor for
recitation. He is called upon individually to recite, and thus feels a
sense of responsibility that he may be able to exhibit his knowledge of
the subject and state it accurately. The professor then seeks with all
the stores of his experience and learning, and by clear illustration, to
resolve whatever difficulties may have been experienced by the student

THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

in his study of the book, or by the class as a whole. In this way the
largest measure of assistance which can be given by the able text-writer
and by the experienced professor is afforded to the student's need.
This method does not, moreover, exclude the reading of cases by the
student, but encourages and requires it, to supplement and illustrate the
teachings of the treatise. In this way the study of the reports falls into
its proper place, and becomes an aid and a help instead of a source of
perplexity and bewilderment.

Professor Dwight's career has exhibited the success and fruitfulness
of his method most abundantly. His students have been enthusiastic
while they have been under his charge, and when they have gone out
into the walks of active life, they have retained their admiration for
his teaching and their affection for him as a man. The graduates of
the school have passed, these many years, at once into the practice of
their profession, and brought their legal training at once to the test of
practical experience. But they have continued to testify, down to the
present, and whether they belong to the earliest classes or to the latest,
that their legal training, when brought to the test, has not been found
wanting. Any educational institution and any instructor may justly
take pride in such results.

But the history of Columbia Law School would be incomplete if the
instructors who have been associated with Professor Dwight did not
testify to their experience in their joint labors with him. He has been
to them the kindest and truest of friends. A true lover himself of
mental independence and of freedom of thought and action, it has been
his pleasure that they should be of the same mould as- himself in this
respect. He has aided them by advice and counsel, has delighted to
promote their success, and to cultivate to the utmost their powers as
instructors, but has always left to them, in their relations with their
classes, the fullest liberty. They have always enjoyed, equally with
himself, the right of private and independent judgment, and in consulta-
tion with them as a faculty, he has ever called for the frankest statement
of their opinions, and has given such opinions their just weight in
counsel. Hence the members of the faculty have been bound together
in the strongest bonds of harmony and friendship. Happier relations
of instructors towards each other, and of their students towards them,
have never, it may be justly said, been maintained and cherished in any
institution.

It can but bring sadness to us all, as teachers and students, that this
happy life and these cherished relations are now to come to an end.
But Professor Dwight's life has been inseparably bound up with the life

COLUMBIA COLLEGE LAW SCHOOL.

of the institution, and his memory will cling to it imperishably for the
great good it has done, and the fruitfulness of the work it has accom-
plished. He gave it life, cherished its growth, developed its strength
and vigor, made it powerful for good and a source of help and enlighten-
ment to thousands. Neither they nor those who come after them
will let its memory die, nor his memory as linked with it in fondest
association.

THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

{Tribute of 3ub$e Militant 3. Wallace.

Unites States Circuit Court.

It was my good fortune to have the benefit of Professor Dwight's
instruction at the Law School of Hamilton College in 1857. The school
was in its infancy, but his superlative qualifications as a teacher were
already recognized by all the friends of the college, and had begun to
attract a wider recognition. The classes were small, eight members com-
prising the whole corps of students that year. Professor Dwight was in
the prime of vigorous manhood. He was endued with an enthusiasm for
the law both as a science and a vocation, which was contagious and
irresistible, and which, concentrated upon a class so few in number, could
not fail to evoke the best energies of every student in the work of prepa-
ration for his profession. There were no distractions in the quiet village
of Clinton to allure us from our studies. Recitation commenced at 10
o'clock, and for two hours and a half we were examined by Professor
Dwight upon the text which had been assigned to us at the close of the
preceding recitation, and listened to his exposition of leading cases or
recent decisions upon cognate subjects. Our afternoons and evenings
were fully occupied in a careful reading of the text for the next recitation,
and the hours between an early breakfast and recitation were spent in
reviewing what we had read the previous afternoon and evening. At our
moot courts, Professor Dwight officiated as the judge, and the students
in rotation were counsel. I need not say that the legal conundrums we
were called upon to discuss were decided as correctly as they usually are
in the courts. Such a student life throughout the curriculum, under such
an instructor, ought to have illuminated the dullest intellect with a glim-
mering of the gladsome light of jurisprudence, and supplied the least
proficient with a fair equipment of elementary learning. I know it
kindled in the breast of every student a generous ardor for the law as a
science rather than a trade, and an affection for Professor Dwight amount-
ing almost to idolatry. It was for all of us a priceless opportunity.

During my professional life I have known many lawyers who were
students under Professor Dwight after he entered upon his larger field of
usefulness at Columbia Law School, and it has always seemed to me that

JUDGE WILLIAM J. WALLACE.

I could discover in them the traces of his influence and example. I have
never heard one of them speak of him except in terms of loving regard
for the man and loyal appreciation of his unrivalled merits as a teacher.
I shall not dwell on his attainments in jurisprudence, or the part he
has filled in public affairs during a long and busy life. It is allotted to
few to achieve like him distinction as a lawyer, judge, legislator, and
publicist. His best fame will rest on his best work, the great work for
which he was pre-ordained by his pre-eminent gifts, the preliminary
education of 6,000 students for a career of usefulness in a noble and
ennobling profession.

SYRACUSE, N. Y., April 25, 1891.

io THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

tribute of 1bon. 3o0epfo 1R.

"Unite? States Senator from Connecticut.

I have known Professor T. W. D wight since about 1844. While he
was at Hamilton College, I was a member of his classes in law, the German
language, etc. He was then a comparatively young man. We all
regarded him with great respect and I may say fraternal affection. He
was an admirable teacher. His evident interest in the matter, his desire
to win young men to study, and his charming manner impressed all of
us. This regard has followed him during his long life. I congratulate
him upon his very useful and honorable career, and wish him health and
happiness for many years to come.

WASHINGTON, D. C., April 10, 1891.

JUDGE D. P. BALDWIN, LL.D. n

tribute of 3ufcge 2). p. Baldwin,

fij=Bttornes*ineral of fnbfana.

By an alphabetical accident I head the Alumni Law-School List of
Columbia College and received the first diploma that ever came from
Dr. Dwight's hands. Probably it would be no unjustifiable untruth
to say that I am the oldest living Alumnus of our now celebrated Law
School. Naturally a brief sketch of its infantile days and of Dr.
Dwight in its weakness will be appropriate to this testimonial number.
Dr. Dwight was from 1846 to 1858 Professor of Political Economy
and History in Hamilton College, N. Y. When I first made his
acquaintance in 1854, he, outside of his college work, was teaching a
law class. The outcome of this was the incorporation in 1855 of the
Hamilton Law School, which in 1857 a d 1858 was, under Dr. Dwight,
graduating a dozen men each year with the degree of LL.B.

It goes without saying that in 1858-9 there was no Senior Class at
Columbia, but when I entered, in October, 1859, there were 35 Seniors
and 25 Juniors. I entered the Senior Class, but attended all the Junior
recitations from October, 1859, to May, 1860, and may say with perfect
truth that during that entire year there was not a word uttered by
Dr. Dwight in the class-room to either class that escaped me. There
was no other teacher. The Professor spent six honest, full hours in in-
struction each day, besides his moot-court work in the evenings. His
method was almost wholly that of text-book and recitation. Upon
a few subjects, where there were no available text-books, he dictated
lectures. We began our two-hour exercise with a rapid review of the
previous lesson ; then followed one and one half hours' advance upon
the thirty pages that was our daily task, and afterwards, if there was a
lecture, we copied for fifteen minutes from his dictation. Any one was
at perfect liberty to ask any question, which was promptly answered.
In 1860 there was no Washburn on Real Estate and no acceptable book
upon Torts. The New York Court of Appeals' Reports numbered only
sixteen volumes. Story, now almost out of date, was the great standard
authority in almost all departments of law. The Junior Class began
with the subject of personal rights in Kent's Commentaries, rapidly

12 THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

reading portions of the first, second, and third volumes. Next they took
" Parsons on Contracts," then in two volumes, and recited every word.
This was followed by Greenleaf s Cruise ponderous on Real Estate. The
Seniors began with Willard's Equity Jurisprudence. After completing it
they read Greenleaf on Evidence, vol. I. Following this was Parsons'
Mercantile Law. We then took down from Dr. Dwight's dictation a course
of lectures upon Torts, Admiralty, and Pleading and Practice under the
Code. This completed the two-years' course. In the evening Professor
Odronaux gave a course of lectures upon Medical Jurisprudence, and
Dr. Francis Lieber upon The State and Political Science. Occasionally,
about once a week, some eminent New York lawyer notably Wm.
Curtis Noyes would give a lecture, at which there would be a gathering
of the friends of the school. The Moot Courts were always interesting.
Dr. Dwight would act as Chief-Justice and two of the Seniors as Asso-
ciates. After a case had been argued by four students, it would be
adjourned a week for the Associate Justices to prepare their opinions.
These were written without consulting with the Chief-Justice, and often
Dr. Dwight would find his decisions overruled by those of his Associate
Justices.

The chief ambition of the school centred around the prizes. These
were $700, distributed in different amounts, the smallest being $100.
The prize examination occurred May 10, 1860, and consisted of 75
printed questions and an essay upon the New York Statute of 1860
concerning the rights of married women. Before me lies a printed list
of these questions. The successful men were the two Baldwins, William
S. Ely, now deceased, and Charlton M. Herrick. Ex-Surrogate Robert
C. Hutchings, on account of his popularity, was chosen valedictorian of
the class at its commencement in Niblo's Garden, in May, 1860, an
account of which I afterwards read in the New York Tribune, but was not
present at the time.

I think Dr. Dwight was the best teacher, without exception, that I
ever knew. His classes were so small that each man was regularly called
upon each day and vigorously, yet kindly, cross-examined upon the
lesson. Even the indifferent and trifling had to learn something. To
the diligent these recitations were perpetual feasts. Before me are the
note-books in which I took the Professor's remarks and lectures. They
revive in a* degree the old, inexpressible charm of this great law
teacher.

LOGANSPORT, INDIANA, April 23, 1891.

EDMUND WET MO RE.

{Tribute of iBbmunfc Metmore.

I can best describe Dr. Dwight's peculiar excellence as a teacher by a
brief account of my own experience as one of his students.

I entered Columbia College Law School in the autumn of 1861. I
had spent the preceding year, being the first year of my law studies, in
the office of one of the leading lawyers of the city, and had picked up
as much as the average young man, just graduated from college, gathers
from a year's experience in a law office, and that was almost nothing. I
was ambitious and industrious. I read Kent and Blackstone doggedly ;
copied papers faithfully (it was before the days of typewriters and office
stenographers) ; learned some of the ways of the Sheriff's and Register's
offices ; made a few timid applications at Chambers, where I was ad-
dressed as " Counsellor" by Judge Barnard; collected some miscellaneous
legal information, and obtained an uncertain grasp of a few disconnected
principles. But at the end of twelve months little had been gained, and
all was confusion. I was mentally bewildered, and a good deal discour-
aged. I floundered amid the vast body of learning that makes up the
law ; but to appropriate it, make part of it my own, and fashion from it
an instrument I could handle as a master, seemed a hopeless task.

In this state of mind I began my attendance at Dr. Dwight's School.
He was our sole instructor. He dictated to us from his lectures, we
read about thirty pages a day in the text-book, and every day's exercises
began with an oral examination of the work of the day before. To me,
the effect of this method was like the sunshine dissipating a fog. Out
of chaos arose order. Rules, fundamental definitions, classified state-
ments, brought the knowledge that was imparted into form, and fixed it
firmly in the mind. I instantly felt that I was making progress. To my
fellow-students and myself came that delightful intellectual pleasure and
stimulus that springs from the consciousness of knowledge acquired and
power developed. All our earnestness and enthusiasm were awakened.
We used to meet in the old quarters in Lafayette Place, and as we
gathered for the recitation, or came trooping out afterwards, we discussed
the subject-matter of our studies with eager interest.

i 4 THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

The course was only two years, but, earnestly and enthusiastically
pursued, it resulted in laying a broad foundation, upon which the super-
structure raised by subsequent studies and the experiences of actual
practice could firmly rest.

I have given some time and thought to the subject of different
methods of college instruction, and I believe that, as a preparation for
the legal profession, Dr. Dwight's system of teaching is that which expe-
rience has shown to be the best ; and certainly, he himself, as a teacher,
has had few rivals in this country. The controlling principle of his
system is the inculcation of the elementary rules of law applicable to its
leading branches, by presenting them in the clearest and simplest form,
under a carefully studied and logical arrangement, and fixing them in
the mind by apt illustration and the drill of recitation and review. The
consequence is that the student bears away with him that which he never
forgets. He has stamped upon his memory an outline within which the
results of all future labors naturally and readily fall. He has the basis
upon which to rest the science of legal reasoning the best equipment
for the future development of his powers. There is no student of Dr.
Dwight who has faithfully followed his profession since he left the
School, who will not heartily confirm my words. And still more heartily
will all his old students bear witness to his charm and genius as a teacher.
Age and experience have not lowered the high estimate of his powers in
this respect which was formed when under his instruction, nor time
lessened the affectionate and enthusiastic regard in which he is held.
The profession at large, and this city in particular, and beyond all, the
College with which he has been so long connected, owes him a debt of
gratitude. What Dr. Arnold was to Rugby, Dr. Dwight has been to
the Columbia College Law School.

He has done much to raise the standard of preparation for the Bar,
much for the scientific study of the law. Gratefully each of us, who
enjoyed the inestimable privilege of his instruction and friendship, will
repeat the words of Rome's great orator to his teacher : Hunc ego non
diligam, non admirer, non omni ratione defendendum putem ?

NEW YORK, April 27, 1891.

HENRY HOLT. 15

tribute of Ibenrp Ibolt

To one who had never sat under Professor Dwight's instruction,
though hardly to one who had, it might seem strange that a pupil who
graduated nearly thirty years ago, and has never practised law, should
find reasons for accepting the invitation to testify here to the good that
Professor Dwight's instruction has done him. Yet there are such
reasons, and the invitation has brought them to mind very promptly.
Though I have had little " practical " use for his teachings, I shall always
regard being under them as among the greatest advantages of my life.

It was a high and rare education day by day to watch his mind work-
ing calmly and smoothly despite the interruption of constant questions,
and to each question promptly turning out an answer illuminating one of
the most complex of human sciences.

But there was a still more important side to what he did for us. In-
tellectual training and special knowledge are probably far from the most
valuable things that a pupil takes away from a teacher really great.
The grasp of men and circumstances which, despite those constant inter-
ruptions and digressions, enabled Professor Dwight to get through each
day's regular task in its regular time, or at least to make those of a few
day's average into their allotted time, was another education. The class
was not a small " seminar " seated around a table, but a crowd of three-
or fourscore youths with the proverbial modesty of the recent graduate,
and the interruptions were not always intelligent, or even polite.
But they were always welcomed with an urbanity which was, and to me,
for one, has always since been, simply a great moral inspiration. It has
never been my privilege, as it has doubtless been that of those of Profes-
sor Dwight's pupils who practised his profession, to find some reminis-
cence of his teachings coming up and helping at some critical moment ;
but I am sure that it has been the privilege of us all, through the whole
arduous discipline of life, in moments where calmness and urbanity were
the great and difficult need, to have the reminiscence of his example
come up as an incentive and support, an influence toward patience and
kindness, and a source of guidance and growth.

NEW YORK, April 27, 1891.

THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

{Tribute of franklin flDaclDeigfx

It would be almost ungracious to yield to our disappointment at
Dr. Dwight's resignation instead of subordinating it to a grateful
acknowledgment of our rich possession in the work he has so amply
done. One could not wish to linger in an attitude that might obscure
even for a moment our appreciation of his distinguished usefulness.

And it is conceivable that we may a little assist his usefulness by
recalling some of those characteristics of Dr. Dwight which have made
his work so successful. For myself, I like to recall that almost peculiar
gift of his, which made upon my mind the first striking and indelible
impression when I came within his influence ; I mean his rare gift of
teaching. His professional learning and intellectual strength were
evident to every one, of course, but I had been accustomed to professors
who were distinguished scholars and men of strength. It was Dr.
Dwight's extraordinary fitness for teaching that was so remarkable as
to be absolutely new. It seemed to me to rise to a distinction. It
happened in my experience which was scarcely individual of the
academy, the private tutor, and the usual college course, that I had not
once fallen into the hands of a man who had been distinctly born to
teach ; and Dr. Dwight was, therefore, an almost entire surprise. He
was a revelation.

We have made a good beginning of progress in the art of teaching
since we first were astonished by the natural gifts and the fine training
of this great teacher, and the chance of a new sensation such as fell
to Dr. Dwight's students of my day is happily passing away. I am not
competent to estimate accurately the influence of Dr. Dwight in this
progress, but it must have been very considerable ; for he stood at the
beginning so almost alone as a great teacher that he produced the effect
of discovery. For the first time we knew that teaching might be a great
art and a distinguished profession ; that it was not a mere pot-boiler for
learning, not a mere material resource for learned men, and not a mere
fellowship for the support of advanced scholars. And for the first time we
saw clearly that learning was but one requisite in teaching, and but one
qualification for a professorship ; and not the first requisite or qualifica-

FORMER LAW SCHOOL, LAFAYETTE PLACE

FRANKLIN MACVEIGH. 17

tion, since over and above all was the natural gift and the special
training.

One of the striking effects of Dr. Dwight's great gift and the only
one I shall have space to mention was an unfailing power to make
every man in his class a genuine student. Every one yielded to the
spell whatever may have been his previous training or habits. If he
had idled in college, he at once quit his idle ways ; if he came to study
law as a pastime, he quickly found himself unexpectedly earnest ; if he
was aiming at an ornamental profession, he fell immediately into habits
of serious work. We could not be discriminated, whatever the variety
of purpose with which we entered the school.

It would not be easy to too much admire this interesting power, nor
to overestimate the importance of one who could so strongly affect and
influence large numbers of the intellectual young men of his time. There
have been in the last five years very few American positions of such
exceeding influence as Dr. Dwight's chair in the Columbia Law School ;
and it is right to add that few Americans have withdrawn from positions
of great influence accompanied by as much active affection as will eagerly
follow Dr. Dwight into his regretted retirement.

CHICAGO, ILL., April 27, 1891.

1 8 THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

tribute of 3ames IRicbarfcs.

Professor Dwight's title to lasting fame will rest upon his pre-emi-
nence as a teacher of law. He has been a Judge of our highest Court;
an advocate engaged in weightiest cases ; foremost as a citizen in po-
litical reforms and in opposing mischievous legislation ; but it is as Pro-
fessor of Municipal Law in the Columbia Law School for nearly a third
of a century that he is best known and distinguished amongst us. For
many years he was the Law School.

He built up, upon his own methods, a School of Law not second to
any in prosperity and to be a graduate of which was ever after a matter
of pride and a help to success.

Professor Dwight's methods in teaching are worth considering ; he
impressed every student with the feeling that he was his genuine friend,
and whenever he meets one of his pupils, old or new, he meets a man who
greets him not only with his hand but with his heart. His students, he
assumed, were in the school to learn law and not " eating terms," hence,
he had no system of grading recitations, and there was no roll-call.

He never mortified a student ; if an answer were manifestly wrong, he
would say : " Would you not rather say it is so and so."

Sometimes he would put to every student in turn the same supposed
case and ask him his opinion upon it, and after each had answered, give
the true solution. This afforded an opportunity to the clever ones to
make a little proper display. We learned very much, too, by the ques-
tions which we asked of him in the class-room and which he, like another
Socrates, freely encouraged.

In the moot courts, held each Friday, he presided, and, after the ar-
gument, the vote of the class was taken. A week later he rendered his
decision.

The secret of Professor Dwight's success lies in the fact that there is
no sham about him. He is thoroughly equipped. A biographer of
Charles James Fox said of the latter that he was successful as a par-
liamentary debater because he first so clearly presented the subject to his
own mind that he could not fail in the utmost clearness to others. Pro-
fessor Dwight knoivs and he can explain what he knows.

NEW YORK, May 7, 1891.

GEORGE W. VAN SICLEN. 19

tribute of (Beorge M. Dan Siclen*

Secretary Ibollana "Crust Company.

With inborn sweet gentleness almost womanly, with manly firmness,
with consideration for the feelings of others and a kindly interest in
their affairs, with native dignity of bearing, with gentle humor and
quick but harmless wit, a born teacher, touching upon and training the
best qualities of mind of all his pupils, teaching them to think for
themselves and where to look for and to find the learning with which his
own mind overflowed, a man of honor, without a word inculcating
honorable conduct and practice, religious without obtruding upon the
sect or faith of any, a cultivated Christian gentleman, Theodore W.
Dwight takes with him into retirement from active life, and will take
with him into the grave, and into that happy land where all who have
known him will hope to join him, the love of over four thousand strong
studious minds, who in the past thirty years have felt the lasting effects
of his genial power as the earth's latent forces feel the beneficent power
of the sun to develop them.

NEW YORK, April 21, 1891.

20 THE D WIGHT TRIE UTE.

{Tribute of William <L Witter.

" Many are the thyrsus-bearers but few are the mystics." In the days
of the Academic Grove and Porch, when the philosopher and the edu-
cator in the highest sense were one, the immortal educator seeing, as it
is related in the Phaedo, how few were the true philosophers, is made to
utter the words above quoted.

During the past half century this country has been favored with two
great educators, who were men of the true philosophy, educators in the
highest sense : the earlier, Francis Wayland, whose individuality and
scholarship lifted a seat of learning at Providence, Rhode Island, into a
repute enjoyed even to-day by few of the colleges of the land ; the later,
Theodore Dwight Woolsey, whose personality and learning broadened
and firmly fixed the University at New Haven in the high position it
still enjoys ; and now in somewhat later years has appeared a third edu-
cator, Theodore Woolsey Dwight, whose distinguished personal character
and intellectual equipment have raised the level of legal scholarship and
of moral purpose in this metropolitan State of New York, while at the
same time he has created and maintained by the sheer force of his almost
unaided ability and personal influence a great centre of legal instruction.
Large as is the public debt to each of these eminent instructors of
modern days for their lasting contributions, respectively, to the science
of moral philosophy, of international law, and of applied jurisprudence
yet, after all, the quality which in each of them takes precedence above
every other endowment, and shines with a lustre brighter than that shed
by any kind of mere learning, is the inspiring and ennobling personal
character which has illuminated their pathway. " Men appear from time
to time," says Emerson, " who receive with more purity and fulness
these high communications. The highest of these not so much give
particular knowledge as they elevate by sentiment and by their habitual
grandeur of view." This commendation is pre-eminently applicable to
Professor Dwight. Without ever a word or any demeanor of profession,
but always as himself an inquirer after truth, he has imparted to that
title new meaning, in the deliberate estimation not of boys or youths,
but of men already impressed with the significance of living to some

WILLIAM C. WITTER.

purpose. It is not law that he has taught so much as justice. If the
student has not discerned how a rule or axiom has its foundation some-
where in the distinctions of absolute right and wrong, new light is thrown
upon the subject, new illustrations drawn from an exhaustless treasury
of wisdom, the ideal distinction is sketched, till it has seemed that the
speaker was in touch with the very fountains of equity. It is not so
much details of legal learning that he has sought to impart as a breadth
of view proceeding from a breadth of character built upon the very
reason of things and with which few are endowed. When any respond-
ing cord has existed in the student it was certain to be touched. His
character is an illuminated and illuminating character. The Columbia
College Law School has through his influence been not merely a school
for legal learning but a school for character.

Accompanying and shining through his more conspicuous qualities
has been ever perceptible the good cheer of a calm, self-contained, con-
templative soul exhaling unwearying kindliness and patience which are
unobscured in the memories of some who have for a score of years carried
his wise and luminous portrait in their hearts. As Crito says to the
great instructor, " For men will love you in other places to which you
may go and not in Athens only."

The youth, the citizen, the state are alike legatees of his best posses-
sions. Whether upon the bench or at the bar, whether seeking by active
effort and more passive example to purify the corrupt civic practices of
the day, or pursuing his more especial vocation of the educator, his life
commands a sincere admiration. He evidently is persuaded that " above
and beyond what we may perceive through the senses there exist ideals
which alone are true things."

May it not well be said of him, in the words of his immortal proto-
type, that he was " attuned to the Dorian mood, which is a harmony of
words and deeds"?

NEW YORK, April n, 1891.

22 THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

tribute of flDorris W. Seymour*

As a teacher, Dr. Theodore Woolsey Dwight is known and loved
by thousands of the legal profession in all parts of the country, but as
highly and justly as he is esteemed in that character, it is as a jurist that
his reputation will live in the years to come. To such as have had the
benefit of his instruction, it is a matter of perhaps selfish congratulation,
that he has resisted the numerous opportunities that have been offered
him of judicial preferment, but when one reads the learned and discrimi-
nating opinions written by him, as one of the Commissioners of Appeals,
in the 57th, 6ist, and 6$th volumes of the New York Reports, it seems
a misfortune that the science of law should have been deprived of so
learned and able an expounder. In the 178 cases reported in these
volumes, Dr. Dwight writes concurring and dissenting opinions in 68.
Both time and space forbid an extended review of these decisions. It
so happens that but few of these involve questions which will mark them
as " leading cases " ; but they present for consideration an unusual variety
of questions, and for their proper disposition require the discussion of a
large number of legal principles. Such, for example, as the interpretation
and construction of the manufacturing act of 1848, the conveyance made
by religious societies, the extending of the law of trade-marks to the pro-
tection of business names, the discussion of the limited-liability and
removal acts of Congress as affecting the jurisdiction of State courts.
Where can one find the qualifications and limitations properly applicable
to the distinction between servant and contractor more carefully pointed
out, than in the dissenting opinion in McCafferty against Railroad, or the
subject of barratry more learnedly discussed than in Atkinson against
Insurance Company? The review of the rules applicable to that section
of the statute of frauds, which require the sale of goods in certain cases
to be evidenced in writing, in Cooke against Millard, is a contribution to
the law upon that subject for which all lawyers, no matter where prac-
tising, will be grateful. The same is equally true of numerous decisions
pertaining to negotiable paper, especially as affected by its theft, forgery,
and loss ; of equitable conversion, of dower, of partnership, and the cove-
nant of quiet enjoyment. It may be truthfully said of substantially all

MORRIS W. SEYMOUR. 23

these opinions that they are monographs, exhausting the particular
subject under discussion. We doubt whether, in any reports, a greater
amount of learning is anywhere condensed into an equal number of
pages.

It is, however, to the picture drawn in these opinions, and all the
more powerfully, because unconsciously and unintentionally drawn, of the
just and learned judge, that we call particular attention to them. One sees
between the lines of the printed page the working of a trained mind, in-
tent on finding out first how the particular case ought to be decided, that
right may prevail ; next, how that object is to be obtained without over-
riding any principle of law, the preservation of which is of vastly more
consequence than the particular case in hand ; and lastly, the mind, alert
to discriminate between sophistry and truth, the husk and the kernel, the
things that the law, if it would remain a science, must slough off, and
those it must guard as eternal.

BRIDGEPORT, CT., April 22, 1891.

24 THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

tribute of Ibenr^ 1R. Beefcman.

Few are fortunate enough to witness the full fruition of the labors of
a busy life spent in intellectual work. Especially is this true of the edu-
cator, whose efforts are addressed to the mental training of those whose
success or failure in the activities of life within the measure of a genera-
tion can alone be appealed to as evidence of their intellectual equipment.

Among these favored few Professor Dwight enjoys the rare privilege
of being ranked. During the period of thirty years which span his
service in the School of Law of Columbia College, he has seen young men
whom he has trained for a professional career, and inspired with enthusi-
asm for the science to which he was devoted, practising their profession
with success and attaining the highest honors which the Law can bestow
upon her faithful votaries. They are to be found conspicuous among
the younger leaders of the Bar ; on the benches of our highest courts ;
in legislative assemblies, and other departments of the public service.
The habits of investigation, the logical processes of reasoning, and
facility in sifting facts and marshalling them in their proper relations,
which characterize the successful lawyer, fit him especially for the duties
of public life, and it is, therefore, inevitable that, in its pursuit, he should
distance all other competitors in a country where rapid rotation in office
is the rule and special training for public affairs is utterly discouraged.

The influence, therefore, upon public as well as private affairs, which
those exercise whose privilege it is to expound the great science of human
affairs, is far-reaching and profound, and the responsibility they assume
correlatively great.

It is for the great ability and conscientiousness which he brought to
the discharge of this responsibility, and the widespread usefulness and
importance of the results of his life-work, that Professor Dwight's name
will always arrest attention and command respect.

To us, now reaching the milestone of middle life and looking back
to the days spent in his lecture room, the recollections are of the bright-
est and kindliest. His treatment of the students was dignified and
marked by extreme courtesy. The love for his profession was so intense
that it was an unconscious emanation which sympathetically affected

HENR Y . BEEKMAN. 25

those who came within the sphere of his influence. He claimed for it all
its ancient prestige as an honorable profession which was degraded by its
pursuit exclusively for its emoluments.

The methods of instruction which he adopted seem to me now, even
more than at the time I was pursuing them, to have been particularly
happy. The daily recitation from the text-book gave occasion for the
running comment of the Professor, in which the reason for each legal
principle was justified by logical necessity, or by some consideration of
public policy, or by appeals to historical evidences of its origin in politi-
cal conditions or exigencies of a bygone age. The history of the develop-
ment of a rule of law, its modifications and exceptions, were illustrated
by the citation of and comment upon reported cases in which they found
embodiment, and this exposition would be fittingly crowned by some
pithy phrase, or by one of those wonderful maxims of the law he was so
fond of citing, which gave the very essence of the doctrine and fastened
it for all time in the minds of his hearers. The attention of the student
was thus directed to the constructive processes by which the body of our
law has been built up as the occasions of the people demanded. He
came to know not only what the law was, but why it was so, and was
thus prepared to apply it with intelligence and in harmony with that
principle of natural development which is the life of the common law.

Few who have enjoyed the privilege of sitting under the instruction
of Professor Dvvight have failed to recognize the value to them in their
professional careers of the rich stores of learning which he so freely offered
for their acceptance. There are none surely who at some time have
not felt their difficulties vanish with the recollection of some principle
explained and applied in his lecture room.

Professor Dvvight is entitled to the proud distinction of having estab-
lished in this great city the first school in which the the study of the law
was pursued on scientific principles. The renown which the Law School
of Columbia College has justly won throughout the country is his. The
attraction which it exerted in drawing its army of students to its classes
sprang from his personal qualities and methods as an instructor, and it is
due to him that at this great centre of influence, " reading law " has
become the study of a system of jurisprudence.

NEW YORK, April 21, 1891.

26 THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

tribute of (Ben. Ibenrp Efcwin ^remain.

A few words about one of the famous litigations in which Dr. Dwight
was a prominent figure.

Selected by the parties as referee in the case of Marie and others
against Garrison, he was called upon to weigh a complicated state of cir-
cumstances including many other lawsuits connected with the extensive
controversy of which the case before him was an essential branch. The
plaintiffs claimed an agreement under which they were as stockholders to
desist from defending the foreclosure of a dubious mortgage on the Pa-
cific Railroad of Missouri ; and the defendant Garrison was to buy in that
railroad property, to re-organize its corporation on a stipulated basis, and
to apportion to the plaintiffs their stock equivalents in the new organi-
zation. The defendant Garrison having consequently foreclosed, did
purchase and re-organize, but omitted to recognize the plaintiffs' stock,
and denied any obligation to do so.

The foreclosure itself was peculiar in many features. It proceeded
upon the non-payment of the first interest due under a fresh mortgage
made by the same Board that caused the default ; while the default itself
occurred at a time when the mortgagor road was earning not only inter-
est but dividends. The mortgage bonds had been absorbed by the same
directors who acted as directors of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad
Company ; an insolvent corporation whose directors had acquired the
control of the Pacific Railroad of Missouri. A lease was the device
resorted to by which the two roads were linked under the same governing
individuals who constituted themselves into the two separate Boards
of Directors ; and with whom the defendant Garrison was operating.
Under these auspices, together with the further guise of a worthless
dividend guarantee by the insolvent road on a new issue of stock by
the Pacific Railroad of Missouri, a large speculation and investment was
induced in that stock then selling at an apparently low price.

By the time the public were sufficiently " let in" and the new issue
fairly popularized, the mortgage had been created, and bonds under it
furtively issued. Default in the first interest speedily followed, with
swift foreclosure proceedings effectively pursued. The slightest active
opposition or noise would necessarily have thwarted the scheme. Thus
it came about that the Garrison agreement to protect the plaintiffs' in-
terest was relied upon on the one hand, and was resisted on the other

GEN. HENRY EDWIN TREMAIN. 27

hand, in a struggle which, having once gone to the Court of Appeals on
demurrer, culminated before Dr. Dwight in final hearings on the merits.

The battles raged with increasing bitterness as they progressed
through upwards of one hundred and fifty hearings ; and attracted the
attention of financial, legal, and journalistic circles throughout the country.
Even the camps of the respective contestants were rife with dissensions.
Proceedings in diverse jurisdictions and involving numerous parties
nominal and actual had to be investigated and balanced ; and ultimately
the fundamental agreement sued upon was vitally assailed as within the
Statute of Frauds.

It was after, if not in consequence of, the exhaustive and unanswer-
able opinion of Dr. Dwight on this topic an opinion which practically
terminated the defence that an assault was made which a less learned
and courageous referee might have deemed humiliating.

His affability and patience were treated as timidity and doubt, while
his liberalities were perverted by those favored through them into legal
offences. The attempt on these grounds to remove him as referee, how-
ever, ignominiously failed. An alternative Writ of Prohibition against
him was then secured ; but the motion to make this writ absolute was
never decided. The death of the defendant Garrison occurred, and this
resulted in a settlement of all the litigations involved.

The opinion of Dr. Dwight is in itself a treatise upon the Statute of
Frauds.

The judicial repose, pungent reasoning, and fearless conclusions ex-
hibited by him in his treatment of the issues in this notable cause, and
the relentless application through a web of legal intricacies of the funda-
mental principles of law and equity, help to make up a severe standard
of judicial industry and of learning, that may fairly be contrasted rather
than compared with many of the lazy compilations currently reported in
the books to-day as " opinions. "

The methodical attacks which were fruitlessly made on Dr. Dwight in
connection with his rulings in this case, have served to intensify his fame
as a jurist ; and justify this allusion to a brief space in his professional
career that was not without its tribulations and triumphs.

Thirty years ago the writer was under the tuition of Dr. (then Pro-
fessor) Dwight in the third class which had entered the Columbia Col-
lege Law School ; a school which, it is no discredit to others to say,
Professor Dwight had then by his own personality already firmly estab-
lished. The shock of war had been felt before the second class had been
graduated ; and Columbia Law School experienced its fair share of con-
sequent personal losses.

28 THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

Earnest and abiding as were Professor Dwight's political convictions
in those perilous years of national excitement, his collegiate discourses
traversed the constitutional, historical, and political topics naturally be-
longing to the equipment of an American lawyer, with the serene com-
posure and scientific poise that characterized all his work in the class-
room. In the domain of what is now recognized as Political Science, he
associated with himself its leading American writer of that day, Dr.
Francis Lieber; and both men taught and inspired the study of the true
political philosophy of the United States and their laws, as no two men
have since united in doing. It is not too much to say that not since the
days of the old " King's College " and its inspirations to and through
Alexander Hamilton the student, as well as through Alexander Hamilton
the publicist and statesman, has there been a purer well of political
thought, flowing abundantly into the great arteries of American public
life, and silently accomplishing results which even victorious armies need
not to have anticipated.

No man probably since the time of Story has been so potential in
guiding the inquiries and in furnishing the historical logic, by which
practical publicists have solved American problems. Not that all such
problems are already solved ; nor that all solutions thus far have been
made by Columbia graduates ; but that the salutary influences and
exceptional intensity cast out through the daily teachings and writings
of this remarkable man to his peculiar and extensive constituencies,
comprise a feature exceeding the limits of a career exclusively profes-
sional ; a career measurable only in common with other events in the
history of the generation to which it belongs.

The personality which has created and sustained his large con-
stituency is too valuable to become obscured by resignation from the
active duties of daily instruction in the Law School.

A score of years after his greatest victories Von Moltke impressed
himself upon a new generation of his own people, and constructed a new
army for the empire. England's most renowned living statesman heeds
not a ripe old age, but yields his accepted service and sagacious counsel
to a grateful public. So then may the few Columbia men who are
privileged to express themselves here, earnestly hope that for yet many
long years the Empire State and the people of this country may avail
themselves of the great learning, experience, wisdom, and example of the
affectionate teacher, the sound lawyer, the great man. May Dr. Theo-
dore W. Dwight live many years for this purpose ; and meanwhile
accept the grateful homage and cordial regard of every student who ever
reported to him.

NEW YORK, May 4, 1891.

CHARLES W. DAYTON. 29

tribute of Cbarles TO. Dayton.

DOCTOR : "I feel thy conceit well ; howbeit I cannot fully as yet assent unto it ; and
therefore I pray thee give me a sparing therein ; and at a better leisure, I shall with good will
shew thee farther of my mind therein.

"And now I will ask thee another question."

" Doctor and Student," Chapter XI.

When the invitation came to write of Professor Dwight, my thoughts
reverted to the scenes of nearly twenty-five years ago. I pictured the
recitation room in Lafayette Place, the dignified Warden, whose kindly
face and gentle voice banished fear and conquered timidity, whose learn-
ing, though profound, was clear from the simplicity of its expression,
whose service to me, to my classmates, and to the hundreds who have
graduated under him, was the foundation of a high standard of legal
ethics, and the pursuit of knowledge of the law. These memories
kindled a desire to render a tribute, however modest, to one whom
every alumnus of Columbia College Law School reveres and delights to
extol.

To refresh my recollection, I glanced over my notes of lectures, my
briefs in moot-court cases, my preparations for recitations, and I brought
to mind the method of Professor Dwight in demonstrating the strength
and the weakness of the men in my class. Then, as now, it was and is a
matter of wonder, how he seemed to know the peculiarities and sensibili-
ties of each student.

Towards one aggressively confident, the professor was firm and
tolerant ; towards another waveringly certain, he was encouraging and
helpful. In discussion the master brought himself to the level of the
pupil, ever preserving perfect discipline and commanding respect.

Always accessible, each student felt at liberty to confer and consult
with him. His ready sympathy not infrequently gave hope and courage
to men struggling against great odds to secure the benefits of the Law
School.

I remember his saying to us, that the profession of the law should be
followed as a science, not as a trade, and that we should avoid the "arts
of chicane " ; I also remember going to him shortly after I had been
admitted to the Bar, with a question which troubled me, involving the

3 o THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

construction of a will. He gave me of his time freely, entered into
my difficulty with friendly zeal, and made suggestions which lightened
the burden I was bearing. More than ten years elapsed without our
meeting, until one day near the court-house he passed and saluted me by
my name.

This is my brief. The points submitted are reminiscent. The argu-
ment must be made by those who read.

If ten times the space allotted were allowed me, I could but amplify
and cumulatively show, that as a teacher of law Professor Dwight has
ever been without a contemporary superior ; that as a jurist he ranks
with any scholar of his day, that as a man he is endeared to all who have
come within his environment.

On his retirement from the chair he has so long, so honorably, so
eminently, and so successfully filled, he surely will take with him the
esteem of Columbia College, the love and gratitude of those who have
sat at his feet, and the prayers of all, that to him may be given length
of days, health, contentment, and prosperity, until his distinguished,
beneficent, and useful life shall close.

NEW YORK, April 25, 1891.

MORRIS M. BUDLONG. 31

tribute of flDorris fl&.

The fame and popularity of Columbia College Law School have long
been recognized and the credit assigned to its Warden Dr. Theodore W.
Dwight.

His success as an instructor of students in law has not only reflected
enduring honors upon himself, but has demonstrated that the method
which he has employed, if not largely originated, and to which he has
strictly adhered for more than a generation, is the very best ever devised
for legal instruction.

The failure of a single student of thirty successive annual classes to
discover, after engaging in actual practice, any defect or oversight in his
legal training, is a sufficient commentary upon the method employed, and
every practical mind must regard the disposition to still cast about for a
new method of legal education, as belonging to that Athenian quality
of mind whose delight is " to tell or to hear some new thing."

No plan of legal study could be more natural, or more strongly
commend itself, than that of private study of a given number of pages
of an approved text-book, followed by a daily critical examination
thereon by the instructor before the whole class, with amplifications by
the instructor of the more obscure parts, and the supplementing by him
of any omissions from or brief allusions in the text.

The hour spent by Dr. Dwight in the class-room will be recalled by
all of his former pupils as a time when many wrong inferences from
private reading were corrected, and errors in reasoning set right ; princi-
ples which at home seemed arbitrary and artificial became under the
Doctor's statement of their history, reasonable, necessary, and just ;
ancient statutes, whose quaintness seemed to stamp them as entirely
obsolete and of value only as antique legal curiosities, were shown to
embody both wisdom and justice, and to constitute the very founda-
tion upon which modern jurisprudence rests ; and phrases and maxims
from the civil law which seemed out of place in the text were found to
be epitomes of the law ; and have ever since served as guide-boards
through the particular field where they were met.

32 THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

To sum up the recollections of those days when Dr. Dwight person-
ally gave instruction in almost every branch, the aim was to first implant
and firmly fix the root principle in the mind ; then the minor ones and
exceptions were grouped about it, while the details were massed about
them in natural order, and the whole subject, thus left as a unit in the mind,
was easily retained and readily recalled. Thus the student, led along at
first ignorant as to whither he was tending, found himself at the end of
the first term advancing along a sure path, which brought him daily
assurance as he entered deeper into the labyrinth of his studies that
there were no back steps to take.

The superiority of Columbia's method, as established by Dr. Dwight,
over the one by lectures chiefly, is apparent.

By the latter the student is introduced, by spoken language which
rests but for a moment on the ear, to a new species of thought, in lan-
guage full of new terms, and his grasp of them is necessarily slight ;
before he can properly think over and lay away in his mind what he has
heard, the demands of another day are upon him, when new truths but
half comprehended are added to those but partially understood, and
thus he proceeds, gathering only a general idea, and there is left on his
mind in the end only a panoramic impression of what he has heard. He
cannot feel sure of his position, and a sense of growing strength and
self-confidence, so indispensable to the future lawyer, and which can
spring alone from well grounded knowledge, fails to take root in his mind.

Equally unfortunate is that other method, which may be styled a
study by philosophical comparison of adjudicated cases, which calls upon
the student to discharge a critic's duties while he is yet a tyro, and
requires original discrimination and judgment before he has mastered
the alphabet of his profession. A system better calculated to in-
crease the student's perplexity and to discourage his hopes could not
be invented.

It must, however, be admitted that the best method in the hands of
an indifferent instructor must result, at the most, in only a partial success.
No art or study is difficult of mastery, if rightly approached. The
difficulty arises from the master's failure himself to clearly perceive the
situation, and to start the mind properly upon its course and direct it
wisely as it advances. The mysteries of legal studies, like a woven fabric,
readily unravel, if the right thread is found and faithfully held.

Dr. Dwight's distinguishing characteristic, as a teacher, is of this
order.

His acquisitions amount to far more than perfect familiarity with the
principles of the Law. He has mentally digested them, and absorbed and

MORRIS M. BUDLONG. 33

assimilated them into his mental and moral nature, so that he gives them
out with the diction and life of original conceptions, chaining the attention
of the student, and engraving them upon his mind.

' ' What you perceive aright you express clearly,
And the words to say it in come easily."

The Warden of Columbia College Law School is a fine illustration of
this truth.

The high regard and personal affection with which Dr. Dwight is held
by every student who has been graduated under him, without a single
exception, is something extraordinary. The explanation lies in deeper
grounds than the enthusiasm of college boys for a favorite tutor.

The favorable judgment and affection of men who realize that they
are on the eve of the battle of life, and who have come to sufficiently
serious views to choose their profession, could only be won by a man of
solid moral worth, sound mental attainments, and true intellectual power.
Besides, under Dr. Dwight the student is brought to feel the nobility of
the profession he has chosen. He sees that the names of those in the
past who have reached the most enviable places in it are alike dis-
tinguished for the high moral purpose and conduct which actuated them.
He feels ennobled by the goodly company he is in, thinks the better of
himself for the choice he has made, and naturally turns in gratitude
and affection to the man who has inducted him into so pleasing a pros-
pect and fitted him to meet so agreeable a life-work.

Now that Dr. Dwight is to retire from the arduous duties so long
and so well discharged by him, he will carry to the quietness and rest
which he has so justly earned, the best wishes of all his former pupils,
who will always readily acknowledge the debt of gratitude they owe
him.

NEW YORK, April 25, 1891.

34 THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

{Tribute of 3ame0 OL

The term of Professor Dwight's professorship at Columbia is coinci-
dent with a very considerable change in professional methods and at-
tainments with which he is in no small degree identified. The first half
of the present century was a formative period in American Jurispru-
dence in its fundamental theories and principles. It was the time of
Marshall, Story, and Kent. When the survivor of these great men died,
a widespread movement for reform in judicial procedure had begun to
make itself felt. The germinal force of that movement was the effort
to adapt the flexible principles of the existing body of the law to the
changed conditions of modern life, and to bring those principles into
closer and readier application to the requirements of a new world of
business.

When Professor Dwight assumed the chair which scarcely more than
a decade before had been occupied by Chancellor Kent, it was his task,
not only to illustrate how the already settled principles of law were to
be applied under new modes of procedure, but also to instruct his pupils
in their skilful and useful application to the requirements of a new era
of business. For this task he was singularly well qualified. A keen,
logical, and analytical faculty trained by the most exacting study, enabled
him to state propositions of law with nice precision, and to set them in
their proper historical and philosophical relations. A never-failing
memory drew apt illustrations with which to enforce them, with equal
facility from ancient and modern sources. Above all, a strong common-
sense and familiarity with affairs enabled him to give to the discussions
of the class-room a life-likeness and reality which brought the matter
almost into the range of actual experience. His point of view was
always practice, and never mere knowledge. He dealt with real subjects
in a real way, and with a real interest. He was therefore pre-eminently
the man adapted to help those who meant to be themselves helpful in
their professional life in the world as they were to find it. The fervid
oratory of the advocate, so needful in times when personal rights and
liberties were in peril, had for a time at least given place to professional
accomplishments of a less conspicuous but not of a less valuable character.

JAMES L. BISHOP. 35

The faculty of marshalling the details of complicated business transac-
tions, of drawing accurate legal deduction on subjects of novel interest
and of large importance, the wisdom to so advise as to render litigation
unnecessary rather than successful, the capacity to direct in the manage-
ment of corporate and trust relations, these and such duties had become
more and more the work of the modern lawyer. In these, and all other
avenues of professional service, Professor Dwight's instructions were not
only of priceless value to the student, but of commanding consequence
to the community. The State is deeply indebted to him for his services
as a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1867, and for the
learning and ability with which he filled the high office of Judge of the
Commission of Appeals. His warm-hearted sympathy and humanity
displayed itself at all times both in public and private life, and all of
those who came into closer relations with him as students, follow him
into his retirement with feelings not only of admiration, but also of
veneration and affection.

NEW YORK, April 25, 1891.

36 THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

tribute of 1R. Wa^ne parser.

It is a pleasant duty to speak for the Class of 1869, and express their
feelings of regard and admiration for their former master in the law. To
join in this testimonial is easy. It needs no effort to awake the loving
memories which subsist between him and every one who was ever
with him, to recall what we owe him, and to wish him long life and
every happiness. But on an occasion like this it is due to him and to the
class, that we should for the time put by our feelings of friendship, and try
to set down dispassionately and for others those peculiarities of his teach-
ing that have distinguished him from other men.

And first and foremost of these characteristics is his devotion to the
work. He was never a mere president or professor. He did not offer to
the law student a variety of courses of lectures and recitations under
different or indifferent tutors. Like Arnold, at Rugby, and Taylor, at
Andover, he was the master of the school, the doctor or teacher oT the
law ; only satisfied with himself when he was constantly with his students ;
devoting his days to them, and his nights to study ; disregarding ease
and comfort, if only he could meet each man daily face to face and
mind to mind.

But he differed from the masters I have named. His character as a
teacher can perhaps be best expressed by saying that he is the Socratic
teacher of the day. His teaching was by questioning. If the answer
were wrong, it was not corrected by his mere authority, but by new
questions which drew the correction from the man himself. It is the
glory of the law that it can be made the subject of such teaching ; that all
its branches are an outgrowth of living principles, rooted in common
sense and common right ; and that the real lawyer is not he who can find a
case in point, but he whose arguments are the clear and necessary state-
ment of legal principle. The true teacher is not he who can tell what is
said in the books, but he who can draw out his students, and teach them
to think as lawyers.

This is no easy task. There was but one who followed this method in
Greece, and in our day I know of no rival to our old instructor. This
method of instruction requires peculiar qualities of mind and heart the

R. WA YNE PARKER. 37

power, the skill, and the patience to follow successively the workings of
different minds, and to put aside his own clear knowledge in order to
follow the very stupidities and errors of his pupils. The teacher must
learn to think with them, to be slow as they are slow, even to fall with
them in order to teach them how to rise again, and to be blind with them
in order to teach them how to see. No other man that I have known has
had such patience and long-suffering and love for his pupils as that which
enabled him thus to efface himself in the work of teaching.

Obviously such instruction needs no penalties. Merely to listen is
education, not merely in the law, but in the lawyer's art of making the
law plain to simple minds, an art that is more necessary than great
learning.

And as the Greek teacher bound his disciples to him by bonds of
affection unknown in the other schools, so we may try the reality and
success of such teaching now by the lasting personal regard which we
feel, without exception, toward our former master in the law.

NEWARK, NEW JERSEY, April 25, 1891.

38 THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

tribute of William 2>. ffoulfce.

president of Swartbmotc College.

The thing which impressed me most when, after graduating in the
Academical Department of Columbia College I became a student in the
Law School, was the complete inversion of the motives and ideas which
prevailed in our undergraduate life. While we were in the Academical
Department it seemed to be the chief object of every student to accom-
plish the utmost results in the matter of marks and class standing with
the least possible outlay of time and labor, and without much regard to
the advantage to be derived from our studies. If we absorbed any con-
siderable amount of knowledge it was oftener against our inclination
than in consequence of it. In respect to college discipline it was much
the same way. So long as we were not caught, any infringement of the
voluminous statutes imposed upon us was rather a merit than a fault.
An undiscovered prank was a title of honor among our fellows. There
were professors whom we respected and under whose skilful guidance we
did good work, but there was still, in spite of our personal friendship, a
sort of undeveloped hostility resulting from this relation. If we could
get the better of the professor in any way we felt a sort of obligation to
do so. When we entered the Law School these notions were utterly
changed. There was no temptation to break any of the rules because we
never saw or heard of any rules to be broken. There was no disposition
to acquire a nominal class standing at the expense perhaps of actual
proficiency, because there was no such standing to be acquired. There
was no temptation to cut morning prayers, because there were no morn-
ing prayers which it was our duty to attend. We could come or remain
away much as we liked ; the consequences were upon ourselves. The
result was that our work was mostly spontaneous. It was the product of
our individual interests and desires, instead of being " prescribed by any
supreme power " in our little state. It was an illustration of the great
fact, so dear to every American, that individual liberty is a more effective
mainspring of action than any kind of paternalism.

This came about no doubt in part from our increasing years. We
were putting away the things of childhood. But it came about in a much

WILLIAM D. FOULKE. 39

greater degree from the initiative which was set by the conduct of him
whom I have always regarded as pre-eminent among instructors, Dr.
Theodore W. Dwight. There was not a man of us whom he did
not capture completely. There was certainly no one in our class upon
whom Dr. Dwight could not count, as a respectful student and as an
enthusiastic and devoted friend. I have never seen his equal in the
power, not only of eliciting the best work from the intellectual material
before him, but in developing that highest of all moral qualities for
the accomplishment of great results enthusiasm. His explanations of
the law were so simple that a child could understand them. The prin-
ciples underlying this great science were so plainly fixed in our memories
that they remain there immutably through life.

He showed us the thread of logic and sound doctrine by which
to explore safely

" The lawless science of our law,
That codeless myriad of a precedent,"

amid the labyrinths of which a man without a guide is so easily bewil-
dered and lost. But most of all we remember at this time, not the clear
and commanding intellect which patiently unravelled for us these com-
plicated truths, but the benevolent face, the kind voice and sympathetic
heart of a professor who rejoiced in all our small successes, and to whom
we could at all times turn for friendly counsel.

RICHMOND, IND., April 10, 1891.

40 THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

When the newspapers several months ago, brought the report that
Professor Dwight had sent in his resignation as warden and professor of
the Law School of Columbia College, because of certain differences between
him and the trustees of the College in respect to the future scope and
management of the school, this information was received with surprise by
the public, and by the graduates of the school throughout the country
with a feeling of deep concern and sincere regret, mingled with the hope
that such report might not be true.

The cause of this regret was not abstract, but personal, for every
student of the Law School carried away with him an earnest and most
profound attachment and esteem for Dr. Dwight. They had sat " not
at his feet " after the manner of the ancients, but they sat literally on the
same level with him, for this was his peculiar tact, that he lifted all his
students up to his high plane. Every member of the Law School had in
Professor Dwight not alone a most inimitable instructor but a friend and
adviser. The pleasant relations between student and professor began
at the beginning of every academic year, for Professor Dwight had the
remarkable personality faculty of immediately learning his name, and
ever afterwards remembering it correctly. I will not attempt to describe
the many extraordinary qualities that Professor Dwight combines, and
which have made him the great professor that he is. In brief, I would
say that he fulfilled to the fullest extent the requisites as laid down by Dr.
Watts : " Instructors should not only be skilful in those sciences which
they teach, but have skill in the method of teaching and patience in the
practice."

It will not be denied that the law is as intricate, complex and difficult
as any of the sciences. It abounds in fine distinctions and differentia-
tions, and requires a logic circumscribed often by apparently contradic-
tory precedents to discover the underlying principles around which these
precedents are grouped, and by which they are often overlapped as the
hanging branches overshadow the small clear stream that meanders un-
derneath.

With wonderful clearness and facility the Professor would explain to

HON. OSCAR S. STRAUS. 41

the unskilled minds of the students the principles that govern a specified
line of decision, and teach them to sift the facts by the light of the law,
and to thread their way from decision to precedent and from precedent
to principles.

Professor Dwight has contributed more largely towards lifting the
study of the law from chaos to a systematic method than any other
instructor of our time. By reason of his great learning in the law, and
his ability and skill as an instructor, Columbia Law School has justly won
for itself the first rank among the schools of that class in the country.
There are several thousand lawyers dispersed all over the country who
feel a deep sense of affection and gratitude to Professor Dwight for the
help he has given them in equipping them for the arduous duties of their
profession, men who are an honor to their profession and reflect credit
upon the name of Columbia. This fact is doubtless well known to the
Trustees of the College, who, I trust, have no lack of appreciation for the
service that Professor Dwight has rendered to the institution, by whose
efforts mainly the school has been built up from a small insignificant
class, to one of the largest and best known of the adjunct schools, so that
with the prestige it has acquired and its large number of students it will
be comparatively easy to extend its scope and enlarge its curriculum.

The graduates of the school are doubtless pleased that an advancing
and progressive step is contemplated. This is a move in the right direc-
tion and in keeping with the progress and general improvement that has
been so vigorously inaugurated under the new regime of the College. A
thorough course of instruction in law, municipal and international, its phil-
osophy and history, as distinguished from a preparation for the practice of
the law, is of the highest use as branches of general education in a country
such as ours, where there is need for many men systematically trained for
statecraft and legislative duties. I am confident that the graduates of the
Law School would have felt better contented if this enlargement of the
scope of the school could have been carried forward under the warden-
ship of Professor Dwight, whose eminent qualifications as an instructor
would serve as an inestimable object lesson to such associate professors
and instructors as may be called to the school to undertake the work
which has been by him so well begun and for so many years continued
with such distinguished and extraordinary success.

Professor Dwight can be assured that he carries with him to his retire-
ment from his arduous duties and long years of distinguished services
the universal esteem and highest regard of his many students throughout
the land, who will ever recognize a deep debt of gratitude to their great
and wise professor.

NEW YORK, April 30, 1891.

42 THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

{Tribute of 3ubge Militant 1b. BeMitt

Supreme Court of Montana.

It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to add my tribute to the
thousands which are rendered to Dr. Dwight upon his retirement from
his active duties at Columbia College Law School.

It has not been my privilege to even meet Dr. Dwight since,
shortly after being graduated, I had his kindly God-speed in starting
for a country then as distant from New York as is now the Congo Free
State, a country which, even the other day, was criticised in Boston as a
remote mining camp unfit to be a State.

But, in a somewhat varied experience of a dozen years, in seeing a
noble commonwealth grow from a small group of mining communities,
and during a slight participation in the making of a State, no influence
has been more potent or present in my life than that of the two years'
instruction of Dr. Dwight.

My memory runs toward him in three channels. The first is that
through which go the thoughts of all his students, his magnificent
system of instruction. It meets a response with his pupils to say that
in his instruction he laid a foundation of principles upon, which he after-
wards developed to the student the superstructure of cases which has
been built upon them. The terse and expressive condensations, which
we call maxims, and the underlying principles of the law, he planted in
the student's mind and tilled with daily applications to varying facts,
until they took a root as lasting as life itself.

The writer of this letter happens to have had his lot cast where a
new common law upon two subjects has, within a few years, been devel-
oped that is the Western American law of mines and water rights.
This is not the place to discuss or even define the radical departures
from the ancient law of real estate which have been taken in the matter
of mining and the use of water in the Western States. They are
departures required by geological and climatic facts, and by the all-
powerful necessities of a people a people who, under their wagon bows,
along with their rifles and picks and shovels, brought their fathers' com-
mon law, the everlasting principles of which they adapted to a new

JUDGE WILLIAM H. DEWITT. 43

environment principles which Dr. Dwight made household words to
those who sat under his instruction. There is one of his students, of the
class of 1878, to whom, in the endeavor to solve the ever-recurring legal
problems, often comes a thought, with the accompaniment of "as
Dwight used to say."

Another of my happiest recollections of that great teacher is his high
moral view of the profession. Banter upon lawyers' lack of integrity is
common upon the lips of laymen. It is a stock joke of the stage. It is
good-naturedly tolerated in the profession. With Dr. Dwight it was
wholly absent. I do not remember his ever indulging in humor, the
subject of which was the sometimes alleged moral weakness of the mem-
bers of the profession. He taught us not only law, but law morals. He
impressed us with a belief that the law was the most honorable of all
callings in life, a belief which the vicissitudes of experience have not
shaken from the soil in which he planted it.

There is one other memory of Dr. Dwight's history in the law school
which is near to the hearts of many of his students, and of which I, in
common with others, can speak with grateful remembrance. Many of
us relied upon tutoring and coaching law-school students, conditioned
in Latin, in order to supply certain sumptuary demands of nature and
an artificial civilization. Dr. Dwight did more than give us letters of
recommendation. He found us work, and took pleasure in doing it.
Hundreds of his students owe to his interest and efforts the fact that
they found the means by which they were enabled to prosecute their
studies.

I can look back to many other instructors whom I admired and
respected, but Dr. Dwight occupies the higher place of teacher and
friend.

He has built himself a monument in the hearts of his pupils. Its
foundation rises from every State in the Union. May it be many year?
before its cap-piece is placed, and the end shall crown the work.

HELENA, MONTANA, April 22, 1891.

44 THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

{Tribute of William flX jfowler.

fresfoent Hew .t'orf:, Ontario, an& tClcstcrn 1rtailroat>.

It is said of Judge Joseph Story " that his familiar bearing toward
' the boys ' as he called the students, his frankness, bubbling humor,
merry and contagious laugh, and inexhaustible fund of incident and
anecdote, with which he gave piquancy and zest to the driest themes,
won for him the love of his pupils, whose professional careers, after they
left the Harvard Law School, he watched with fatherly interest."

How truly these words apply to the work of Professor Dwight, those
who have been " his boys " can bear witness.

The daily sessions at Columbia Law School have been for many
years not only hours of profit but hours of pleasure. Under Professor
Dwight, there were no dry themes, and, after the daily lecture, what a
pleasure it always was to come in familiar contact with one who, beyond
doubt or question, was the earnest and devoted friend of each and every
man whose good fortune it was to attend those sessions. Nor did his
fatherly interest end at the class-room door. Each young man, in starting
out, with the Law School behind him, the world before him, and his
diploma in his pocket, felt that he was still one of Professor Dwight's
" boys," and that his record had a place somewhere " in the heart of a
friend."

A brilliant chapter in the history of Columbia Law School is about
to close. The man who made it successful and renowned is to transfer
its cares and responsibilities which, to him, have been a sacred trust
to other able, but younger, men.

May we not, with propriety, at this time, quote Judge Story's own
words, and confess that " we dwell with pleasure upon the entirety of
a life adorned by consistent principles and filled up in the discharge of
virtuous duty, where there is nothing to regret and nothing to conceal ;
no friendships broken ; no confidence betrayed ; no timid surrenders to
popular clamor ; no eager reaches for popular favor. May the period be
yet far distant when praise shall speak out, with that fulness of utterance
which belongs to the sanctity of the grave."

Professor Dwight will carry with him, in retiring, the .esteem and
affection of hundreds of men, each of whom is a better, wiser man for
having been one of " his boys."

NEW YORK, April 8, 1891.

WILLIAM B. HORNBLO WER. 45

{Tribute of Militant B. Ibornblower.

I cannot forego the pleasure of contributing my share towards a testi-
monial to Professor Dwight, upon his retirement from active service in
connection with Columbia Law School.

Whatever may be said as to the comparative merits of various systems
of instruction as pursued in the different law schools of the country,
and whatever theoretical advantages one system may have over another,
I think it will be generally conceded that Professor Dwight has achieved
a pre-eminence among the legal instructors of his time in attaining the
practical result of imparting to his students a clear, coherent, and logical
view of the law of the land as the student is called upon to deal with it
in the practical affairs of life. No man with average ability can have
graduated from Columbia Law School under Professor Dwight's tuition
without being a reasonably well-equipped lawyer for the work that he
has before him. The luminous exposition of legal principles, the constant
and patient reiteration of those principles, the copious fund of illustra-
tion showing the application of the principles to legal controversies,
which have characterized Professor Dwight's instruction, have necessarily
furnished to the student who has carefully followed the Professor's
course with a fund of information which cannot fail to have made him a
ready and accurate lawyer at the very outset of his career. If himself
endowed with a love of learning for its own sake, and a fondness for
research, he has received a stimulus which will enable him during his
professional life to add to his fund of information by historical study of
the sources of the law ; he has a nucleus of legal principles, around which
he can gather and assort in orderly arrangement all the results of his
individual investigation. If, on the other hand, as happens with most
lawyers, he is thrown at once into the practical discussion and conduct
of legal controversies growing out of the daily affairs of life, he is able
to bring to bear upon those controversies the principles and rules which
during his Law School course have been so thoroughly and constantly
enforced upon his mind. I do not mean to be understood as intimating
that Professor Dwight has ignored the historical study of the law. On
the contrary, so far as can be done in the time allotted, I believe he has

46 THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

given a sufficient rJsum/ of the history of legal principles to throw light
upon their real meaning as finally evolved and developed ; but the
emphasis has been placed by him in his teaching rather upon the results
than upon the process by which the result is reached. Bracton, and
Shepherd's Touchstone, and Coke upon Littleton, and the Year Books
have been by no means overlooked by Professor Dwight in his instruc-
tion, but he has recognized the fact that the average student has neither
the time nor the disposition for curious historical research, and if he be
above the average, and has the time or the disposition, he will for himself
pursue the lines of investigation to which his tastes direct him. Pro-
fessor Dwight has, if I mistake not, proceeded rather upon the idea that
it is more important for the legal practitioner, as for the medical prac-
titioner, to know how to deal with actual cases and to apply the settled
rules of his science, than to know what were the rules a hundred or two
hundred or five hundred years ago. I do not mean by this to be under-
stood as belittling historical research, or what may be called the more
theoretical mode of studying the science of jurisprudence. Each system
has its advantages, but I am inclined to think that for the average man
Professor Dwight's system is the better. At any rate, in my own case, I
cheerfully bear testimony to the fact that I received under Professor
Dwight's instruction such a thorough and comprehensive and lucid
exposition of the principles which I have since been called upon to prac-
tically apply, that I would not exchange it for any other instruction
which I might have received under some other theory or plan.

Professor Dwight's personal qualities have aided him much in dealing
with the minds of the young men brought before him. His imperturba-
ble good-nature, his gentleness and kindness of manner, his indulgence
for the errors and mistakes and even the heedlessness and indifference of
his students, and his patient persistence in re-explaining and re-enforcing
what many another man would think had already been sufficiently
explained and enforced, have stimulated many a mind which otherwise
would have given up in despair. No student, I venture to say, ever felt
rebuffed or snubbed by Professor Dwight, so long as he was seeking for
light, however irritating and exasperating might have been his apparent
slowness of apprehension or forgetfulness of principles frequently brought
to his attention.

It is a matter of great regret to all the graduates of Columbia Law
School that Professor Dwight is about to cease from active work in that
institution. We trust that his successors will be worthy of him in his
qualities of mind and heart.

NEW YORK, April 25, 1891.

HON. PERRY B ELMO NT. 47

tribute of 1bon. pern? Belmont

to Spain.
Cbairman of Committee of Ixmse of IRepresentativea on foreign IRctations.

It was Professor Dwight's attractive personality that drew me
although a graduate of Harvard to the Columbia Law School. It was
he who taught me, as he did the graduates of other universities who have
come to his classes, to feel a deep and lasting interest in the welfare and
success of Columbia while, of course, the more distant alma mater
always claims our affectionate loyalty. Professor Dwight for a longtime
WAS the Columbia Law School. It hardly existed when he became con-
nected with the College in 1858 a third of a century ago. Now it num-
bers over six hundred members, and is, with one exception, the largest
institution of its kind in the country. The State University of Michigan
is said to have more law students, but the conditions there are very
different. The State bears a large proportion of the cost of instruction,
and the admission fees are merely nominal ; but, in the case of the
Columbia Law School, many of the graduates have had to observe the
strictest rules of self-denial, industry, and thrift to avail themselves of
its benefits.

To his most able and interesting method of instruction he added the
happy gift of so identifying himself with the students who came under his
charge, and thus assured them that his personal interest in their careers
would extend beyond the Law School itself. They saw the kindly con-
cern he took in the progress of those who had preceded them, and they
instinctively felt that the same generous solicitude would follow them
also in after life. There could be no stronger incentive to earnest effort,
and not a small part of the success which has attended Professor
Dwight's labors in the College has been due to this sentiment. This
is only one of the many reasons which caused the announcement of his
retirement from active connection with Columbia College to be received
with such deep regret by every student who has had the pleasure and
the profit of his instruction ; and it is a pleasing duty to give expression
to so sincere a feeling, however inadequate these few words may be.

48 THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

tribute of Bwi$bt Erven 3one$.

The personality of a teacher is a powerful factor quietly at work to
aid or hinder his teaching. In no other profession can an inspiring man
accomplish better results. His enthusiasm awakens the dormant powers
of the pupil, arouses his ambition, and spurs him on to personal achieve-
ment. And as each year brings under his influence many ripening minds,
he is ever securing new and rich opportunities. Perhaps no better
example of the far-reaching effects that may come from this personal
power can be found than is illustrated by the affectionate regard with
which the law graduates of Columbia College remember Professor Theo-
dore W. Dwight. In him pre-eminently, there was the power of first
gaining the interest and then absorbing the attention of the pupil. And
thus it was, he speedily acquired a magnetic influence over all and
obtained his great popularity. His stature, his scholarly appearance, his
years, his courtly and frank carriage, made him an object of admiration to
his students, and they could not but appreciate his profound ability, his
keen wit, his unusual patience, and his unerring fairness. But, beyond
these, it was his cheerful and earnest interest in the affairs of the lecture
room, in fact, his genuine enthusiasm in his work, that controlled
their wills and that gave him his great force with them. This enthusi-
astic interest in his calling, so freely exhibited by Professor Dwight, was
the more admirable because it is nowadays seldom found in men of his
parts and in his profession. Even instructors of wide reputation are too
apt to leave upon their students an impression of the utter weariness of
learning; and lawyers of mature age too frequently are given over to a
critical condition of mind that precludes all enthusiastic display. But
in Professor Dwight's case, the renowned instructor always retained his
original fire, and the able lawyer never became too acute or profound to
show his ardent interest in the affairs of the moment. As a result of
this, while students were with him they were eager to hear him elucidate
legal questions ; and now several thousand lawyers look back upon him
as the most remarkable instructor they have ever known, and carry with
them a remembrance of him which is a constant incentive to better
work.

But Professor Dwight has not held the regard of his students only by
his enthusiastic interest in his work. The clearness and brilliancy of his
mind opened to them the justice, the accuracy, and the pliability of legal

D WIGHT AR VEN JONES. 49

principles. He pictured the law as a just and equitable science, and
based its teachings upon principles of right and justice. He brought out
with wonderful acumen the nicety of distinction that abounds in it, and
in this displayed striking power, for these distinctions constitute to a great
degree the fascination of the study of law, as they require the closest
reasoning and the keenest attention on the part of the student, and
always offer an opportunity for individual thought. To Professor Dwight
this art of just discrimination seemed natural and simple ; and he was
ever delighted to trace the logical development of some nice distinction
from the well-known principle underlying it. He thus impressed one
with the reasonableness of the law, deprived it of its mysteries
and technical absurdities and brought all its doctrines to the test of
right. Abstruse questions of law in his hands resolved themselves into
clear propositions of fairness, and passages in text-books that seemed to
have been written for the purpose of terrorizing students, became
strangely simple when illustrated by him. This power of a master mind
could not but impress his pupils. They looked up to him then as they
look back upon him now, as a model scholar and teacher, one who was
both learned and lucid, both profound and simple.

While the class of 1877 the largest ever graduated was under his
instruction, the amount of college work done by Professor Dwight was
astounding, especially when other work done by him is considered. At
that time, each division of each class thought itself ill used if he did not
conduct every recitation. It would be easy, if space allowed, to give the
daily duties that he undertook ; but as the memories of all those who
attended the Law School at this time will recall his constant presence,
there is no need to do this. His unremitting attendance in the lecture
room must have put a most severe test upon his patience and energy ;
but it was just at this time that he displayed fully his wonderful strength.
All who then attended his recitations and lectures will remember the
crowds that filled every available spot in the old lecture room, the
students even sitting about on the edge of the Professor's platform.
And this was the daily experience. The instance simply illustrates the
desire that then existed to hear him expound the lesson of the day a
desire which has continued undiminished to the present time. And now,
as Professor Dwight retires from active work in the Law School he has
made famous, I am sure it is the hope of a host of his old pupils, that he
may realize how widely he has impressed his powerful personal influence
upon them, how greatly he has elevated the study of the law both for
them and for all scholars, and how successfully he has set before them a
living example of a calm, a wise, and a just man.

NEW YORK, April 24, 1891.

5 o THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

tribute of Etbelbert 2). Marfielfc.

of Xafagette College.

I suppose that it is the common sentiment of my contemporaries in
the Law School that Professor Dwight was the law school. Certainly it
was far truer of him than Louis le Grand's favorite saying, " L'e"tat c'est
moi," was true of him. His personality pervaded it, his ideas dominated
it, his will guided it ; above all, love for him controlled it. Professor
Chase, whom we admired and respected, was so completely a result of
Professor Dwight's methods that we scarcely thought to distinguish him
and his teaching from the elder and, for the time, dominant influence.

I came to Columbia, a Princeton graduate, from a period of special
study in the University of Oxford, and in Germany, where I had laid a
foundation in Constitutional History and Roman Law. My mind had
been thoroughly liberalized and I was dead in earnest. It was, there-
fore, I think, a fair tribute to Professor Dwight as a teacher that I was
entirely captivated, and I say, without hesitation or reserve, that he was,
mejudice, the best instructor I ever knew. As a teacher he compelled
the students to work, he imparted information with ease and accuracy,
and he stirred up those of scholarly instincts to independent investiga-
tion. In all his dealings with the students he had the happiest way of
removing misconceptions, and opening up by a fine, incisive, critical
method a way through the most tangled maze of conflicting decisions.
In this there was none of that pyrotechnic display so common in brilliant
men who are inferior teachers. It was simple in method, outspoken in
manner, and bred a confidence in the students which has seemed to me
to be the most marked characteristic of Columbia men at the bar. In a
word, Professor Dwight made us all understand that the English Law
was a SYSTEM, and that induction was not the sole logical method to be
employed in its study or practice.

The school was meant to make lawyers, and it made them well.
Professor Dwight taught practical law with a practical end to practical
young men. The end was ever in view, and the means were perfectly
adapted to it. But in those who were fitted for more philosophical
studies in connection with the law he awoke a love of scholarly treatment

E 2 'HELBER T D. WARFIELD. 5 1

and pursuit which was a true example of the power of " influence " in
teaching. I tried the School of Political Science, but had done the work
of the courses offered there elsewhere, and pursued an independent
course of research, in which the Warden was ever interested and ready
to advise. In every relation, in public and private, there was the same
unvarying genial, kindly, friendly way, often warming into humor, some-
times chilling into rebuke ; but if there was anything in his class-room
manner open to criticism, it was that he was too indulgent to that class
of men who have neither self-respect enough to study themselves, nor
to abstain from being a check and a nuisance to those who do study.
These men often imposed on his good nature, and if any proof of its
genuineness was required, they gave him " the concrete case on which to
raise the issue."

I went to Columbia because I believed in the theory of the school,
so my critical judgment has not been altered, though possibly strength-
ened, through admiration of the man who may be said to embody that
theory. It is a singularly complete gratification to recall my law school
days, since in theory and in personnel I was so entirely led by the right
path to the desired goal. In the few years I passed at the bar, and have
since passed as an instructor in Jurisprudence and the outlines of English
and Roman Law, I have had nothing to regret in my training, and I shall
hope that my alma mater shall at last find a man imbued with the ideas
and methods so long so successful in Columbia. For our beloved and
honored friend and preceptor I trust there may be a long and honorable
repose in the midst of those for whom he has so faithfully labored.

MIAMI UNIVERSITY, April 17, 1891.

52 THE D WIGHT TRIBUTE.

^Letters of IRegret

from 3ut>0e 1benr\> Biscboff, Jr.

Of tbe Court of Common iplcas of tbc Cits of flew JBorfc.

DEAR SIR : Answering yours of 2d inst., which reached me day
before yesterday, I beg to say that nothing would afford me more
pleasure than to add my tribute of esteem and affection for Professor
Dwight in the shape of an article for the " Dwight Tribute." But the
time allotted for the article is so short that it is doubtful whether I will
be able to comply with your request. I shall endeavor to do so, but
write this so that you may select another to write for the Class of 1871
and thus avoid a possible disappointment.

Respectfully yours,

HENRY BISCHOFF, JR.

jfrom 3ut>$e %e Baron B. Colt

Circuit 3uMc O f tbe Unites States for tbe fftrst Ju&icial district.

MY DEAR SIR: I very much regret that the condition of my health
will not permit me to comply with the request contained in your letter.
Did circumstances permit, it would give me great pleasure to bear
testimony to the high character, ability, and worth of my dear friend
and teacher, Professor Dwight, for whom I have always had the most
affectionate regard.

Sincerely yours,

LE BARON B. COLT.

LETTERS OF REGRET. 53

from 3ut>ge flfcorgan 3. 'Brten.

Of tbe Supreme Court of tbe State of flew fiord.

DEAR SIR : I regret very much that I shall not be able to comply
with your request to add my mite of praise to my old and esteemed law
professor.

I have a feeling for Professor Dwight which is warm, deep, and
personal. Since leaving the College I have met him but once or twice,
but the kindly face, the genial manner, the earnest and sincere work
performed by him have left an impression which can never be effaced.

I regret, therefore, that your letter reaches me at a time when it
seems nearly, if not quite, impossible for me to comply with the request.

If you do not hear from me, therefore, you will understand that it is
due to no want of sympathy in a movement intended to honor a man
whom all who know him respect and revere.
With respect I am,

Yours truly,

MORGAN J. O'BRIEN.

from TKH flD. Wn0.

DEAR SIR : I was ill and absent from my office when yours of April
2d came, and now for the first time find opportunity to answer. I very
much regret that I shall be unable to comply with your request. Nothing
would give me greater pleasure than to write an article on Professor
Dwight's influence upon legal training in this country. Expressing my
regret and thanking you heartily for the opportunity which you have
offered, I am

Yours truly,

W. M. IviNS.

Letters were also addressed, among others, to

Hon. W. H. H. Miller, Attorney-General United States, Judge Elliot
Sanford, H. Walter Webb, Third Vice-President New York Central Rail-
road ; and Aldace F. Walker, Chairman Western Traffic Association,
all of whom had been students under Professor Dwight's instruction,
who from want of time were unable to respond in time for the publication
of their responses in the Dwight Tribute.