faster drinker of the two, choose an umpire. This umpire places the duelists side by side, sees that each one has his glass properly filled, and calls off: One, two, three. At the word three, each one must put his glass to his mouth and empty it as fast as he can. The one who can rap his glass first on the table, is the victor. It is the umpire's duty to see that the duel has been fairly conducted, i. e., that no heel-tap is left in the glass. The victor has the right to call the other his beer boy, Bierjungen. To challenge another to the duel is, in technical parlance, ihm einen Bierjungen aufbrummen. I advise my countrymen not to venture upon a beer duel without considerable preliminary practice, for the greenhorn may be sure of getting the worst. The veteran student has a knack at swallowing beer that would horrify any respectable professor of anatomy and hygiene. In truth he does not swallow it at all; he throws his head slightly back, opens his mouth and, holding his breath, simply pours the beer down the esophagus as if it were a long funnel. The rapidity with which a glass of beer can be made to disappear by this process is something incredible.

Until comparatively recent times, the study of the Pandects consisted in listening to or reading a sort of running commentary upon the principal passages of the fifty books, in the order in which they occur. But this method has gone out of use, in Germany at least. A professor who lectures on the Pandects arranges his own order of topics, or follows that of some popular text-book, generally that of Arndts. In either case, the order is strictly scientific and the subdivision very minute. The course is a systematic grouping and exposition of the principles scattered throughout the corpus juris, each statement being supported by references.

The winter's work was heavy. I had Pandects with Professor Mommsen every day, including Saturday, from nine to eleven, Criminal Law with Professor Zachariæ every day from twelve to one, Doctrine of Inheritance with Dr. Schlesinger five times a week, in the afternoon, History of Civil Procedure among the Romans with Dr. Maxen twice a week. In all, twenty-five hours of rapid writing a week. The lecturers, Dr. Maxen excepted, gave very little tempus; Mommsen, in particular, scarcely any.

The labor, it is perhaps superfluous to say, was wearing. One cannot attend twenty-five hours of lecture per week, taking full notes, and not feel his brain and fingers grow weary. In addition to the lectures, I had a good deal of collateral reading. Besides finishing the Institutes of Justinian, I also read with an older student a number of selected titles from the Digest, worked up my notes as fast as they accumulated, consulted such works as Vangerow and Goeschen on the Pandects, and Berner on Criminal Law, to say nothing of Rudorff's Rechtsgeschichte and Keller's History of Civil Procedure by Formula, and reviewed the greater part of Puchta.

My relations with Dr. Maxen became more intimate. The doctor had several ways of extracting information without seeming to question; his favorite method was to start some very heretical proposition and lure his victim on to combating it vigorously. He was, therefore, accurately posted, not only as to what I was hearing and reading, but also the greater or less extent to which I had really mastered the subjects. At the end of the semester, he said to me in an encouraging manner: "You have certainly done well so far. I don't know how long you will be able to keep up this rate of work, but if you can only hold out until next fall, and can be exempted from examination in German law, you might perhaps go in' for your degree. But you must consult Ribbentropp. He is not the dean of the faculty at present, but he is the Nestor, and if he takes an interest in you, your chances are good. I cannot help you directly in the matter, but I can do something indirectly. There is a mass of work yet to be done. You must have Ecclesiastical Law, and a Pandecten Practicum, and go through a regular Repetitorium. I hope to be able to organize one this summer. Several students have made application, but I am not willing to take everybody, and four is the limit. If three of the right kind offer themselves, shall I reserve the fourth place for you?" I thanked him warmly, and assured him that it would meet my wishes exactly to place myself for an entire term under his personal supervision.

Preparing for Examination.

Having every reason to expect that the coming summer semester would probably decide my chances as a candidate for the degree of Doctor Juris, I thought it advisable to prepare for it by taking a rest in the spring vacation. There was no necessity for revisiting Wiesbaden, as my health throughout the winter had been unexceptionable. But feeling attached to the place, and confident that the bathing would at least do no harm, I took a second Cur of a fortnight. The spring of 1864 was quite backward, and the weather, even on the Rhine, uncomfortably chilly. The season had not yet commenced, and the number of guests was extremely small. As a matter of course, the place was langweilig, yet the change and the entire absence of excitement were probably the best thing for me under the circumstances. After suffering myself to be bored unmercifully for a fortnight, I ran over to Heidelberg, and from there down the Rhine as far as Coblenz, returning to Göttingen by the valley of the Lahn and Cassel. The last week of the vacation was passed in making preparations for the semestrial work. I decided to hear only two lectures, one on Ecclesiastical Law, by Herrmann, and one on Erbrecht, by Francke. This latter subject I had heard in the winter, but as Schlesinger had not succeeded in making the subject clear to me, and as Francke would be one of the chief examiners, I deemed it expedient to take the course over again.

Subsequent events proved that I was right. Besides these lectures, I took a Pandecten-practicum with Thol. This bears a strong reseniblance to the Moot Courts in our Law Schools. Thöl met his hearers once every week for two hours. At each meeting, a practical case was given out for discussion. Our opinions upon it were submitted, in writing, the next week, and returned to us, with the professor's criticisms, the third week. This returning did not consist in merely handing the papers back, like compositions, with marginal correc-. tions. After each member of the class had placed his paper before him, the professor took up the question, and discussed it in all its bearings, stating what his own views were, showing what views had been presented by the members of the class, which of those views were correct, which incorrect, but not mentioning names. Each student could see for himself, however, where he had made a mistake. These verbal discussions-they were not arguments in our legal acceptation of the term-were very informal. The students were at liberty to interrupt the professor whenever they felt the need of fuller explanations. If any time remained after this exhaustive discussion of the question set for the day, the professor utilized it by submitting one or more short cases to be analyzed on the spot.

I give one of the set cases. It is a very easy onc. A has a claim against B of $100; B against C of $120; C against D of $130; D against A of $140. Meeting by chance, they discover, in the course of conversation, that there is the sum of $100 mutually claimed and owned by all four. This they agree to cancel, leaving the balance of the claims to run. Some time after, C finds among the papers of his father, from whom the debt of $120 devolved by inheritance, evidence that this debt had already been paid to B. What remedy has C, and what is the legal character of the agreement entered into by the four to cancel the common claim of $100 ?

These practical exercises are of great advantage to the students. They are, I believe, better than our Moot Courts. The questions submitted are gencrally of a higher order, and more complicated in their nature, and--the main point-the exercises are better adapted to teaching the class. The necessity of writing out one's opinions at length every week and submitting them to the deliberate inspection of the professor, has the tendency to make one careful. Now and then a Moot Court case is well argued, but generally the so-called arguments are too wordy and rhetorical. Besides, there is a great difference between speaking once in three months or six months, and writing out an opinion once every week for an entire semester.

The Pandecten-practicum covers only the substance of civil law. The more advanced students have practical exercises of a similar nature in Criminal Law, in Ecclesiastical Law, and in Procedure and Evidence.

Francke's lectures on the Law of Inheritance were extremely clear

and satisfactory. As the lecturer spoke slowly, there was no difficulty in taking him down verbatim. The subject is complicated, so complicated, in fact, that I can not hope to give the reader even an outline. I can only call attention to one or two cardinal points. The Roman Law has a much more philosophical conception of succession by inheritance than the English Law. It regards the personality of the deceased as in a measure continued after death, that is to say, all the property, whether real or personal, all claims held by, all debts due by the deceased, everything in short that does not perish with him, devolves as a unit upon one or more persons who represent him, who continue his 'existence, as it were. The heres succeeds to the defunct, is entitled to all his property, is under obligation to pay all his debts, heres defuncti locum sustinet. Our Common Law, hampered from the outset by the feudal distinction between real and personal property, has never yet succeeded in elaborating a satisfactory theory of inheritance. The Roman Law, on the other hand, labored under a difficulty peculiar to itself. It was in the beginning extremely illiberal in doctrine and rigid in its forms. The Praetorian edicts effected gradually a thorough equitable reform, by admitting the claims of kinsmen who were not entitled under the old law of the XII. Tables, by smoothing over mistakes in drawing up wills, and by checking as much as possible, in favor of lineal descendants, the privilege of disinheritance. The development of the Roman law of inheritance is, in fine, the history of a protracted struggle between the narrow-mindedness of the old hereditas and the equity of the Praetorian bonorum possessio. The Praetor had no right to repeal or formally overthrow the old law, but what he was unable to accomplish directly, he did indirectly. Like the English Chancellor, the keeper of his Majesty's conscience, he could not say that such and such a claimant was not legally entitled, but he could in various ways prevent him from enforcing the claim.

A most interesting course of lectures was that delivered by Herrmann on Ecclesiastical Law. The lecturer's delivery was fluent, almost too fluent for those who wished to take complete notes, but his language was clear, and the substance of his remarks was, to me at least, intensely interesting. I can not but regret that no one of our law schools has seen fit to introduce such a topic in its curriculum. Surely, in view of the conflict between Church and State now raging over Europe, it is of the highest importance that the lawyers and jurists of every land calling itself civilized should be acquainted with the principles involved in the issue. The primitive organization of the Christian Church, the growth of the hierarchy, the concentration of power first in the hands of the priests, then of the bishops, finally of the Pope, the Oriental Schism, the Reformation, the Declaration of Gallican Independence, Josephismus in Austria, the scope and functions of Concordats, the claims of the Church to

the exclusive regulation of marriage and divorce, the provisions of the Council of Trent on this point, the Westphalian Treaty of Peace, are all subjects fraught with the deepest interest to every liberal thinker. Hermann's lectures were to me a pleasure rather than a burden, while the notes then taken have since been of great service to me on more than one occasion. I am indebted to them for a very clear and comprehensive survey of the march of Christian society during eighteen centuries.

Göttingen being an exclusively Protestant, university, nearly all the professors and students were in my day Protestant, Hermann treated the subject of Ecclesiastical Law, accordingly, from the Protestant point of view, but without becoming polemic. His exposition of the theory and doctrines of the Catholic Church, being based upon Catholic authorities, was eminently fair. Indeed, the object of the course was to acquaint the hearer with the facts of history and the actual shaping of principles and doctrines, rather than to defend or to controvert any one system. Herrmann now occupies the most important ecclesiastical position in Prussia, to wit, the presidency of the Upper Consistory in Berlin.

The reader can perceive that two lectures a day, and an elaborate opinion in writing once a week, to say nothing of collateral reading, did not leave much unemployed time. But the most searching part of the semestrial work has yet to be mentioned. Dr. Maxen succeeded in forming his Repitorium, or Exegeticum, as he called it, The three members besides myself were students in their sixth semester, preparing for the State examination at Celle in the fall. We met six times a week, at the doctor's rooms, from twelve to one o'clock, The exercise was what medical students call a "quiz," and did ample justice to the name. We students naturally thought that we knew at least some law, but one or two quizzes were sufficient to convince us that we knew nothing. The doctor's method was, in appearance, as immethodical as one could imagine. We never knew before the hour what topic he might take up, and consequently were unable to prepare ourselves. This seemed to me unsatisfactory, and I ventured to say as much to the doctor, in private. At this he only laughed, and replied: "That is precisely what I aim at doing, to make you dissatisfied. If I gave you ten or twenty pages of Van gerow or Arndts to recite upon, you would get the work by heart, I dare say, and forget it again in a week. But if I catch you to-day on some point that has never occurred to you, you will feel vexed at yourself, and when you return to your room you will look it up carefully, and then you will not forget it. My business is not to discover what you know, but what you do not know, and the best way of doing that is to keep changing the subject unexpectedly. I wish to catch you unprepared, for then I shall certainly detect the defects in your reading. Besides, is it not the bost preparation for