The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as
a list of the hundred best books. At least in my day I had my share of
such counsels, and high among the unrealities I place the recommendation
to study the Roman law. I assume that such advice means more than
collecting a few Latin maxims with which to ornament the discourse--the
purpose for which Lord Coke recommended Bracton. If that is all that
is wanted, the title De Regulis Juris Antiqui can be read in an hour. I
assume that, if it is well to study the Roman Law, it is well to study
it as a working system. That means mastering a set of technicalities
more difficult and less understood than our own, and studying another
course of history by which even more than our own the Roman law must
explained. If any one doubts me, let him read Keller's Der Romische
Civil Process und die Actionen, a treatise on the praetor's edict,
Muirhead's most interesting Historical Introduction to the Private Law
of Rome, and, to give him the best chance, Sohn's admirable Institutes.
No. The way to gain a liberal view of your subject is not to read
something else, but to get to the bottom of the subject itself. The
means of doing that are, in the first place, to follow the existing body
of dogma into its highest generalizations by the help of jurisprudence;
next, to discover from history how it has come to be what it is; and
finally, so far as you can, to consider the ends which the several rules
seek to accomplish, the reasons why those ends are desired, what is
given up to gain them, and whether they are worth the price.

We have too little theory in the law rather than too much, especially on
this final branch of study. When I was speaking of history, I mentioned
larceny as an example to show how the law suffered from not having
embodied in a clear form a rule which will accomplish its manifest
purpose. In that case the trouble was due to the survival of forms
coming from a time when a more limited purpose was entertained. Let me
now give an example to show the practical importance, for the decision
of actual cases, of understanding the reasons of the law, by taking an
example from rules which, so far as I know, never have been explained or
theorized about in any adequate way. I refer to statutes of limitation
and the law of prescription. The end of such rules is obvious, but what
is the justification for depriving a man of his rights, a pure evil as
far as it goes,