Page 13 - 1907 February - To Dragma

TO DRAGMA.

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY L A W SCHOOL.

To-day the New York University Law School is one of the
best law schools in the United States and stands shoulder to shoulder
with the Harvard Law School, the Law Department at Columbia
and other well known schools. She is recognized by all these as
their peer, for no school has a better faculty, no school turns out
better trained lawyers.

The Law School was founded in 1834, but its existence was
not assured until 1858, when it was reorganized, and only then did
it really begin its career as a vital force, steadily growing stronger
year by year.

The first head of the Law Department—the office was not
at that time dignified by the term of Dean, a position created in
1887—was the Hon. Benjamin F. Butler. In 1887 Dr. David
R. Jacques became Dean of the School and served in this capacity
until 1891. This was a period of development; the number of
students increased from seventy-seven to one hundred and eighty.
To-day the enrollment is seven hundred and seventy. I n 1891 Dr.
Jacques retired from the Deanship and was succeeded by Dr. Austin
Abbott, who in turn was succeeded by Dr. Clarence D . Ashley, the
present Dean of the School.

During the year 1894-95, the old home of the New York Uni-
versity in Washington Square was taken down, and the new build-
ing now occupied by the Law School, the Graduate School, the
School of Pedagogy and Finance and Accounts was erected in its
place. The earlier building was a land mark to old New Yorkers
and was a picturesque structure about which much historical interest
and many romantic stories clustered. The modern building is,
however, far more commodious and adequate to the needs of the
School.

In 1895 the Law School entered upon a new phase of growth
by its unification with the Metropolis Law School, a very strong
school of which Judge Abner C. Thomas and Clarence D . Ashley
were the heads. This school held evening sessions and maintained
a high standard of requirement for admission. The method of
instruction in the Metropolis School was that used at Harvard and
known as the "Case System," a method introduced by the late Prof.