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The United States magazine and Democratic review (v. 27)
The United States magazine and Democratic review - v. 27 Author:Unknown Author Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: classic lore will, unless early connected, always hinder him from becoming an eminent lawyer, for the nature and objects of the two are so widely different, that... more » one cannot be attended to without excluding the other : in other words, a man cannot be a classic scholar and a lawyer. By this we do not mean to say, that the young student should never devote any time but to the ancient authors ; on the contrary, we recommend a yearly perusal of Cicero De Oratore and the oration of Demosthenes in the originals ; and at leisure intervals, (if a student should have any.) he might read the didactic works of Plato and Aristotle, with the splendid productions of Livy and Thucydides. These would enlarge the grasp of his mental powers : making them of a more analytical nature and giving them, withal, a freedom of action and a perspicuity of expression which could be gained from no other source. But deriving, as he does, so many benefits from, this course, the student has still the same great disadvantage to contend with, that of acquiring too much fondness for such pursuits, and unless he can learn to govern his desires with an absolute power, he need not hope ever to gain distinction—at least, in the law. Thus we see one great difficulty in the way of becoming a lawyer. Another is the extremo reluctance which men show to patronising an inexperienced attorney. We are all naturally so selfish, as to be willing to see others suffer greatly, rather than to bear a little ourselves. Before-we would risk a few dollars in the hands of a poor but worthy young man, we will throw it into the hands of one who has as much practice as he can attend to. But this should never discourage a beginner, for he will always find among mankind some noble soul, whose feelings are congenial with his own, or who has, p...« less