THE LAW SCHOOL DEGREE.

The Law School Faculty has asked the officers of the third year class to request the members to express their opinions as to the advisability of giving the Law School man Doctors' rather than Bachelors' degrees. There follows below a statement of the reasons advanced for the change.

"The President and Fellows of the College are about to consider the expediency of conferring the degree of Juris Doctor (J. D.), upon graduates of the Law School in place of the degree of Legum Baccalaureus (L. B.)

"The Law Faculty has recommended this change which was strongly favored by two successive graduating classes some years ago and it is desired to know the attitude on this point of the present third year class.

"The main arguments for the change are those of academic propriety and uniformity. Our four professional schools, Theology, Law, Medicine and Arts and Sciences are all graduate schools and their degree is therefore a second degree. Two of them confer a Doctors' degree and two a Bachelors'. It seems difficult to justify this discrimination, the practice of conferring what is normally a first degree upon persons who have already their primary degree.

"The continental universities which correspond to our four professional schools give the Doctorate in philosophy, law and medicine. In England all who practice as civilians are Doctors. The new law school of the University of Chicago, being a graduate school, will confer the Doctors' degree if Harvard decides to give that degree to the graduates in law. It is believed that their example would be followed by Stanford University and Columbia.