In  view  of  our  American  system  and  salaries,  we
have  been  peculiarly  fortunate,  it  must  be  admitted,
in  getting  for  our  highest  tribunals  so  many  able  law-
yers— and  California  during  the  entire  period  of  her
statehood  has  been  fairly  lucky  in  this  regard;  but  no
well-informed  man  will  deny  that  such  is  not  always
the  case,  and  that  there  are  those  on  the  bench  to-day


CHARLES  S.   WHEELER  33

— particularly  in  our  Superior  Courts — who  have  no
business  to  be  there.  In  these  cases  it  is  more  often
that  a  legal  education  and  a  proper  training  is  absent
than  that  integrity  or  ability  is  wanting.  An  ignorant
judge  is  almost  as  dangerous  to  a  community  as  a  cor-
rupt judge,  and  some  hold  an  ignorant  judge  to  be
even  the  more  dangerous  of  the  two.
If  the  people  would  improve  the  bench,  they  have
a  right  to  look  to  the  bar  for  the  remedy.  If  the  bar
would  improve  the  bench  it  must  first  improve  itself.
And  there  is  no  way  so  certain  to  bring  the  bar  to  a
proper  standard  as  to  insist  that  the  suggestions  of
Blackstone  regarding  legal  education  shall  be  fol-
lowed out  and  inexorably  demanded.  You  may  wait
till  doomsday  for  the  graduates  of  law-offices  to  bring
to  the  profession  a  higher  standard  than  the  prevail-
ing standards  of  their  respective  offices.  A  stream
will  not  rise  higher  than  its  source.  You  can  not  pluck
a  pearl  of  ethics  from  the  shop  of  a  shyster.
It  is  in  the  academic  atmosphere  that  the  true  ethi-
cal side  of  the  profession  must  be  absorbed.  In  the
hurry  of  an  active  law-office  the  mechanics  of  the  pro-
fession may  be  acquired,  but  its  ethics  must  generally
be  inhaled  elsewhere.
