theory, your cause, before each juror should be your only
concern.

Never try to be "eloquent." Never be funny. Wit may cause laughter, it
never produces conviction. A joke may divert, it never persuades. It
is unnecessary even to arouse a jury's sympathies. _Forget everything
except making the juror understand your case._ The result will be that
he will understand your case, and if he understands it, and it is a
case you ought to win, his understanding of it means that you will win
it.

Take at least one excellent legal periodical. There are four or five
"law" magazines published in America, some of them very good indeed.
Do not pay any attention to the digests of cases with which some of
these periodicals burden their pages, except to see if there is a
recent decision on some case you are trying. You cannot remember them,
and the effort to do so will only confuse. But you will usually find
in each number one serious and profitable article, and possibly more,
on matters of real interest to the profession. Read such articles very
carefully.

The methods of scientific scholarship are now invading the law, and
many of these legal essays are superb pieces of work. Now and then you
will find a monograph of monumental worth. Such is the remarkable
introduction to Stephens' admirable work on "Pleading," to which I
have already called your attention.

That author's demonstration of the value of forms, and his comparison
of the Roman civil law with the English common law, is the most
carefully thought out and learned piece of legal writing I can think
of at this moment. It is as great as it is brief.

Take part in politics. I know that it is an ordinary saying that a
lawyer should leave politics alone. It is not true. What right have
you, a member of the great profession which, more than all other
forces combined, has established and defended liberty, to withdraw
yourself from active participation in the sacred function of
self-government? You have no such right.

Of course you should not make politics your profession. That is fatal
to your success in the profession of the law. It is one profession or
the other, one love or the other. But take part in your party's
primaries. Make yourself so wise and useful that you will be an
indispensable party counselor. By all means be a "factor" in your
party.

As you value life itself, do not permit yourself ever to be made a
lobbyist under the guise of general employment by a