CHRISTOPHER LANGDELL:THE

CASE OF AN ‘ABOMINATION’
IN TEACHING PRACTICE
by Bruce A. Kimball

W
hen he died, almost a century ago,
Christopher Columbus Langdell
was proclaimed in the public press
as “the greatest teacher…that this country has ever produced”1 and
“one of the most widely known instructors and authors of…text-
books in the English-speaking world.”2 Indeed, Langdell (1826-
1906) is arguably the most influential teacher in the history of pro-
fessional education in the United States.
While serving as dean of Harvard Law School (HLS) from 1870 to
1895, Langdell introduced significant reforms that have become the cen-
tral characteristics of university professional schools in the United States.
In the 1870s, when admission to any school of law, medicine, or any pro-
fession required, at most, a high school diploma, he introduced the
requirement of a bachelor’s degree. At a time when the curriculum of all
these professional schools consisted of a yearlong cycle of introductory
level courses, he established the tiered, multi-year curriculum with
sequences of introductory courses followed by advanced courses. It was
Langdell who initiated written examinations for continuation and gradu-
ation in professional education. And it was Langdell who established the
Bruce A. Kimball studied rhetoric at Dartmouth College and earned an M.Div. and
Ed.D. from Harvard University, specializing in history and higher education. He has held
teaching and decanal appointments at Dartmouth, Harvard, University of Houston, Yale
University, and the University of Rochester, where he is now a professor in the higher edu-
cation program. His research addresses the history of undergraduate education, profes-
sions, and professional education.

THE NEA HIGHER EDUCATION JOURNAL | 23

 professoriate as a full-time, salaried career in professional education, dis-
placing the arrangement whereby professional school faculties comprised
practitioners who taught part-time and supplemented their income by
collecting fees directly from the students. In addition, Langdell pioneered
the transformation of the professional school library from a textbook
repository into a scholarly resource for students and faculty.
These innovations alone would put Langdell in the front rank of
reformers of professional education in the United States. But the innova-
tion for which Langdell is best
known concerns his teaching. He
In his course on was the originator of case method:
the inductive method of teaching
contracts in the fall of by asking students questions about
specific cases.
1870, Langdell
introduced both the
case method and the
I n his course on contracts in the
fall of 1870, Langdell introduced
both the method and the first case-
book.3 Initially regarded as an
first casebook. “abomination” by his students, his
faculty colleagues, and the alumni,4
the case method was gradually
adopted over the next two decades by the rest of the HLS faculty. Despite
intense opposition, this inductive teaching method began to spread to
other law schools in the 1890s. By 1920 it prevailed at nearly all univer-
sity law schools in the United States and subsequently proliferated
throughout the rest of legal education.5
Meanwhile, case method teaching was borrowed by the fledgling
Harvard Business School during the 1910s, when the new Harvard presi-
dent, A.L. Lowell, and the new business school dean, Wallace Donham—
both HLS graduates who had studied under Langdell—decided that
adopting case method teaching from the law school was the best way to
legitimate the suspect field of teaching business.6 During the 1920s,
Harvard Business School modified the method to suit a less rule-bound
field but preserved the essential inductive and interlocutory characteris-
tics of Langdell’s case method.
From Harvard Business School, case method teaching proliferated
throughout much of business education, as well as many other profes-
sional fields, over the next six decades. By the end of the 20th century,
case method teaching had been extended so far and borrowed so fre-
quently that its roots were often forgotten. Harvard Medical School attrib-
uted the origins to Harvard Business School, when it began to champion
the derivative problem method of teaching.7 Stanford Law School did the
same on its Web site in the 1990s, perhaps reluctant to credit a compet-

24 | Thought & Action SUMMER 2004

ing institution. But the inductive method of teaching by asking students
questions about their inferences from specific cases—in law, business,
medicine, and other fields—begins with Langdell. No biography of
Langdell has been written, and this essay briefly recounts the story of how
this professor overcame daunting obstacles and determined opposition
to establish a new way of teaching that inspired students by requiring
them to take responsibility for their learning.

L angdell was not considered “a

gentleman” by most of his
Harvard colleagues or the leaders of Langdell established a
the bench and bar.8 He was born in
March, 1826, on a hardscrabble new way of teaching
farm in the hilly town of New
Boston, New Hampshire, 10 miles
that inspired students
west of Manchester. When he was by requiring them to
about eight-years-old, the farm
failed and his mother and two take responsibility for
brothers died. Apparently defeated
by these tragedies, his father became
their learning.
a recluse and sent Christopher and
his two sisters to live with neighbors
and relatives. Nevertheless, the boy conceived the idea to get a college
education and become a lawyer, so he attended the local common
schools and, to save money, worked in the mills of Manchester and
taught school. At the relatively late age of 18, he was admitted to Phillips
Exeter Academy to prepare for college. But, due to his deficient schooling,
the Academy denied him a scholarship. Holding the letter from Exeter, he
sat on the steps of the church in the center of the town and wept.9
Fortunately, his older sister offered to help, and by combining her aid
with work as a janitor and living like a pauper, Christopher paid tuition,
made it through the first year, and then received a scholarship. In 1848,
at the advanced age of twenty-one, he completed Exeter with honors and
matriculated at Harvard College. Despite a great effort to stitch together
enough financial support, his funds ran out after a year and, though at
the top of his class academically, he had to drop out in November 1849.
For two years, he taught school, did odd jobs, and helped out in a
lawyer’s office. By 1851, time was running out to begin his career, so
Langdell entered Harvard Law School, which admitted any young man
with a high school diploma and a letter attesting to his character. Having
only 20 dollars in his pocket when he arrived, Langdell slept on a friend’s
couch, scrimped on food, and studied until late at night, on weekends,
and on holidays.10 His deprivations and single-mindedness were well
known to all at HLS and to others in Harvard College, such as his young

THE NEA HIGHER EDUCATION JOURNAL | 25

 acquaintance, Charles W. Eliot. Only the award of the first research assist-
antship given at the law school allowed him to continue.

I n theory, the law course was 18 months; but nearly everyone was
accorded some advanced standing and earned the degree in two, 20-
week terms. “Earned” is misleading here. There were no exams, and
attendance was neither taken nor required. The two standard methods of
teaching at HLS, as at professional schools and liberal arts colleges
throughout the country, were the lecture and the text-book or recitation
method. The former was, of course, a verbal exposition transmitting a
subject to the students. The latter consisted of a ”catechetical analysis” in
which the professor quizzed the students on their acquisition of materi-
al that had been assigned and read in a textbook before coming to
class.11 More important than the formal classes to Langdell were the
moot courts and discussions with fellow students about legal questions
and hypothetical cases. One of his classmates later recalled:
There were about a dozen of us who took our hash together at a
boarding house on Brighton Street, and of these Langdell was the presid-
ing genius. At table, nothing was talked but shop. Cases were put and dis-
cussed, and I have sometimes thought that from these table discussions
Langdell got the germ of the idea that he later developed into the case sys-
tem of instruction which has made his name famous both here and
abroad.12

26 | Thought & Action SUMMER 2004

 In December, 1854, after three-and-a-half years, Langdell left HLS
with an LL.B. and an honorary M.A. from Harvard College. For the next
15 years, he practiced law in New York City and earned a reputation as
an extremely erudite, hardworking, and thorough attorney, who success-
fully handled some prominent cases. But he was neither famous nor con-
sidered a leader in the profession. When the new president of Harvard,
Charles W. Eliot, chose him in 1870 to be one of the three professors and
then dean of HLS, the appointment was a surprise to all.

T he personal qualities for which

Langdell was known throughout
his career as a professor shed light
During his tenure at
on the attributes of one kind of Harvard, Langdell did
great and influential teacher. It is
sometimes thought that such teach-
virtually nothing to
ers must be spellbinders, who promote or defend case
attract students by their magnetic
personality, their wit, or their method or any other
insight into students’ lives. But this
was not Langdell. He was regarded
innovation.
from his youth as being “slow in
speech,” shy, and reticent, even
“hesitant in manner.”13 He did not seek or enjoy attention. When asked
to supply references be considered for the professorship on the HLS fac-
ulty, Langdell refused to do so, and Eliot had to gather the references
himself. When asked to meet and have dinner with members of the
Harvard governing boards who were to vote on his appointment,
Langdell again refused. During his tenure at Harvard, he did virtually
nothing to promote or defend case method or any other innovation.14
He simply let his actions and reforms speak for themselves.
Nevertheless, he was highly approachable, partly due to his “rustic
manners” that evidently never improved after his untutored youth.15 He
was not “a gentleman” and cared not who was. He seemed largely obliv-
ious to social status or embarrassment. His iconoclastic nature likely con-
tributed to resistance by students, faculty, and alumni to his innovations
and reforms. The unconventional pedagogy seemed to extend from his
lack of social graces. But, ultimately, this characteristic allowed Langdell
to persist in his innovations when others might have yielded to social
pressure or stigma.
Coupled with that iconoclasm was remarkable tenacity and forth-
rightness. Time and again, he faced hurdles that seemed insurmountable:
the death of his mother and brothers; the break up of his family; the lack
of funds at Exeter, at college, and at law school; and the ridicule of his
academic innovations. But with remarkable determination and hard

THE NEA HIGHER EDUCATION JOURNAL | 27

 work, he persevered. This personal characteristic evident in his own life
was carried over into his teaching and his academic reforms. One of the
students in his early case method classes later observed,
His mind recoiled from temporizing or avoiding the real issue. He
sought only the true solution, and when he had arrived at a conclusion,
he adhered to it tenaciously, even in the face of apparent pecuniary loss to
the School or severe condemnation for himself....Any error on his part he
was always quick to acknowledge,
for...his earnest endeavor was to lead
his pupils to be as unerring as possible
‘His earnest endeavor in their search for the truth...‘That man

was to lead his pupils to never deceives himself. He cannot. His

mind is absolutely honest,” was a
be as unerring as comment made during 1870-71. It was
these qualities which in a large way
possible in their search led to his success.16

for truth.’ Similarly, his leading student and

successor as dean, James Barr Ames,
wrote, “He was extremely modest, but
extremely tenacious of his convic-
tions. This not from any pride of
opinion, but because any one who would change his convictions, formed
after painstaking examination and much reflection, must plough deeper
than he had gone, and, by a wider generalization, expose the error of
these convictions. Once convinced of error, no one was readier to admit
it.”17

A bove all, Langdell was known for his single-minded devotion to his
subject. During his brief time at college, when a municipal event in
Boston led Harvard to cancel classes for the day and thousands to gather
on the Boston Common to celebrate, Langdell did not join the festivities.
Later asked why, he said simply, “I preferred to study.” At Law School, he
was known for sleeping in a room above the library so he could study
night and day.18 This disposition naturally made him the object of jokes,
particularly during an age when “scholastic rank…carried no prestige.”19
But the jokes never led to ridicule. In fact, his academic interest even
earned him admiration, apparently because the devotion was so genuine
and because he was willing to share his knowledge and to help anyone
who needed it.
Over the course of the 20th century, it became increasingly popular to
depreciate Langdell’s introduction of case method teaching. This impetus
was due to a revisionist desire to detract from the “heroes” of the past and
to a neglect of the original sources concerning Langdell’s work in the

28 | Thought & Action SUMMER 2004

1870s and 1880s.20 Recent research into previously unexamined archives
is now substantiating the accounts of his teaching by his early students,
such as the following:
[Langdell] ascended the platform…and opened the course with a brief
statement of the nature of a contract. Then he called upon some student
to state…the first case in his collection of cases…His dominant purpose
seemed to be to bring out not only the decision of each case, but the rea-
son for the decision. Students soon
learned that any position they might
advance was pretty soon to be fol-
lowed by the question, “Could you Langdell’s case method
suggest a reason?”....Although he
had collected a number of volumes
entailed a strong
of cases, he…seemed to take up each commitment to
case in the class as if he had never
seen it before….His method was a investigating the
daily object lesson to students in
thoroughness and accuracy. Under
original sources in order
his guidance discussions which to make an informed
would otherwise have been listless
and unprofitable became stimulat- judgment.
ing and fruitful....He was very hos-
pitable to suggestions, but independent in his conclusions. The greatest
names compelled no allegiance from him, unless their opinions were
based upon sound reason.21

L angdell’s case method entailed, first, an extraordinarily strong com-

mitment to investigating the original sources in order to make an
informed judgment about the question at hand. He became renowned
for this commitment as a research assistant and as an attorney. His sur-
viving papers, recently studied for the first time, include thousands of
sheets of handwritten briefs of cases concerning the topics he was study-
ing or teaching. Even among lawyers and legal scholars accustomed to
checking their sources, Langdell was distinguished for his refusal to take
shortcuts in examining original sources. This commitment naturally car-
ried over to his teaching, and at the front of his first casebook he quoted
this maxim: “It is better to go up to the sources than to follow the rivulets
downhill.”22
Second, believing that knowledge was acquired only by examining the
original sources, Langdell held that judgments about the sources were
exactly that—judgments—and, therefore, derivative. He cared not about
the status or prestige of the one who pronounced the judgment. He freely
dismissed distinguished authorities if he felt that their opinion did not

THE NEA HIGHER EDUCATION JOURNAL | 29

 square with the original sources. But he was equally skeptical about his
own judgments, and wrote this reminder to himself in one opening lec-
ture: “Warn students that I entertain heretical opinions, which they are
not to take as law.”23

C ommensurately, Langdell maintained that students should form

their own judgments and that their opinions deserve no less scrutiny
than distinguished authorities. In this
way, he cultivated the intellectual
autonomy of his students. This third
Langdell’s practice of tenet might have been served by hav-
ing students write an essay at the end
questioning students of a course of lectures. But Langdell’s
about the meaning of case method used the pedagogical
technique of questioning students to
cases was intended to develop their capacity to form consid-
ered judgments. This purpose was
lead them to formulate wholly different from the quizzing of
and challenge their the conventional recitation, which
tested whether students could restate
own inferences. facts, definitions, or rules imparted by
a textbook or a lecture. Langdell’s
practice of questioning students about the meaning of cases was intend-
ed to lead them to formulate and challenge their own inferences. This
approach to conducting a class was revolutionary.
Fourth, and even more surprising, Langdell invited and expected stu-
dents to challenge him. “If, as rarely happened, he ventured a statement
of his own, he welcomed and encouraged inquiry and tests by the men
with a pleasure they knew was sincere,” wrote a student from the first
class in case method.24
Finally, given that the class was devoted to forming, understanding,
and challenging the opinions of established authorities, of himself, and
of the students themselves, Langdell expected and encouraged students to
revise their views. Most surprising, he freely announced revisions in his
own views prompted by class discussion. Another early student recalled:
“Professor Langdell was always willing to reconsider a conclusion in the
light of new suggestions. Not infrequently…he would recant proposi-
tions which he had advanced as sound. A student recently informed me
of a course in which Professor Langdell changed his opinion in regard to
a case three times in the course of one week, each time advancing with
positiveness a new doctrine.”25
This remarkable behavior of a 19th century professor freely and
repeatedly acknowledging in class that he had been wrong and, moreover,
that his students had led him to see his error is evidenced by the margin-

30 | Thought & Action SUMMER 2004

al annotations of students in their casebooks from the 1870s. Such com-
ments appear as: “L. changes his ground...”26 or “Langd. now says oppo-
site.”27
These central characteristics of Langdell’s case method may seem
familiar and uncontroversial today. To recognize his originality and influ-
ence as a teacher, we must appreciate “the hostility with which this inno-
vation was received.”28 In the early 1870s Langdell’s case method classes
were
...met with the open hostility, if
not of the other instructors, certainly
of the bulk of the students. His first ‘Langdell had the rare
lectures were followed by impromp-
tu indignation meetings—“What do
gift of making remarks
we care whether [this student] agrees in a way which would
with the case, or what [that student]
thinks of the dissenting opinion? indicate the real
What we want to know is: What is
the Law?”…Most of the class could
question, without
see nothing in his system but mental discouraging pertinent
confusion and social humilia-
tion….Then came the new and inquiry.’
dreadful ordeal of the examinations.
The older professors called wholly for definitions and rules—‘When and
by what statute were lands made alienable in England after the con-
quest?’…[Langdell] presented actual problems for solution.…If a debtor
tended to a creditor the amount of the debt on the day it becomes due,
and the creditor refuses to receive it, and afterwards sues the debtor, how
should the latter defend himself?29

E nrollments in the school, and especially in Langdell’s courses,

declined rapidly. It is important to note that students were not fleeing
the humiliating method portrayed in the movie The Paper Chase.30 That
perversion of Langdell’s approach seems to have resulted from a transfor-
mation in case method wrought by law professors in the course of the
20th century. In contrast, “Langdell had the rare gift of making remarks
in a way which would indicate the real question, without discouraging
pertinent inquiry.”31 He “was gentle in his address to the point of diffi-
dence.”32 Students fled his classes because they were unaccustomed to
taking responsibility for their own learning, which is what Langdell
required.
A small group of students, “the ablest men of the class,” remained in
Langdell’s classes. These seven were called derisively “Kit’s freshmen”; a
name that they, however, treated as an honorific title.33 Nevertheless, the

THE NEA HIGHER EDUCATION JOURNAL | 31

 criticism from other law professors and alumni and the sharp decline in
student enrollments prompted Eliot to wonder whether he had made a
mistake in appointing Langdell. The president decided to make some
unprecedented inquiries among ”Kit’s freshmen,” including Franklin G.
Fessenden, a future justice of the state supreme court in Massachusetts.
The substance of Eliot’s interview is reported in a previously unpublished
archival account:
[Fessenden] received a notice to
call at President Eliot's office. He
could not imagine what it was about,
‘When I go to Professor but, of course, he went. President
Eliot said, “I want to know what you
Langdell’s lectures, I think of Prof. Langdell’s lectures.”
get something that I Fessenden, a first-year student of
about three months, was flabbergast-
cannot find in any ed, but he swallowed his astonish-
ment and said, “Well, Mr. President, I
book.’ can go to Professor Washburn’s lec-
tures and hear him read a chapter
from his book on real property. I can
go to Professor Parson’s lectures and
hear him read a chapter from his
book. But I learned to read before I came down here. When I go to Prof.
Langdell’s lectures I get something that I cannot find in any book.” “Thank
you,” said President Eliot. Later Fessenden…always wondered whether
that conversation had not been a substantial support during a storm that
raged about Eliot’s head.34

L angdell’s inductive method of questioning students about their inter-

pretation of original sources came close to being extinguished as a
pedagogical heresy. To be sure, it worked, in as much as “[t]he result of
the method of Langdell was active search and inquiry; that of the other
professors was passive absorption.”35 But the storm raged about Langdell
even more than Eliot, and the professor could have easily abandoned his
innovation. Yet, Langdell persevered, sustained by the same personal
qualities that drew to him a coterie of serious students inspired by his
example.
Those qualities include his disarming iconoclasm, his personal
tenacity in overcoming rejection, his forthrightness and honesty in
encountering objections, and, above all, his inspiring devotion to the
subject matter. Coupled with those attributes were the characteristics of
case method itself: to investigate the original sources; to examine all
opinions about the sources on an equal footing; to develop students’

32 | Thought & Action SUMMER 2004

autonomy and capacity to formulate interpretations through a process of
questioning; to allow one’s own views to be criticized on a par with those
of the students; and to expect and encourage students to revise their
views, while freely acknowledging how one’s own views are being revised
as a result of the classroom interaction.
In Langdell’s case method classroom, the small group of students who
remained “were finding out how the law was made, and the reasons for
it, and how it applied in actual practice. [Langdell] was working it out for
himself with them. Every step of
that reasoning was scrutinized and
tested and re-examined til it proved The small group of
right or wrong. The law was being
taught as a science, not a rag-bag of students who remained
rules and exceptions.”36
‘were finding out how
the law was made, and
L angdell’s abomination gradually
gained acceptance. Eliot
remained supportive, and the lead- the reasons for it, and
ing opponents on the faculty left
HLS or retired. The stronger stu- how it applied in
dents continued to be won over to
the unusual teaching. During his
actual practice.’
studies at HLS, future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis
observed in 1877:
Some of our professors are trying to inculcate in us a great distrust of
textbooks, and to prove to us the truth of the maxim “It is better to go up
to the sources than to follow the rivulets downhill.” When one sees how
loosely most textbooks are written and how many startling propositions
are unsupported by the authorities cited to sustain them, the temptation
to become a convert…is very great.37

By the early 1880s, enrollments were increasing as more and more stu-
dents were attracted by the higher academic standards at HLS. In 1886
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., another future U.S. Supreme Court Justice,
publicly declared his success in teaching by case method:
With some misgivings, I plunged a class of beginners into [a] collec-
tion of cases, and we began to discuss them together in Mr. Langdell’s
method. The result was better than I even hoped it would be. After a week
or two, when the first confusing novelty was over, I found that my class
examined the questions proposed, with an accuracy of view which they
never could have learned from text books, and which often exceeded that
to be found in the text books. I at least, if no one else, gained a good deal
from our daily encounters.38

THE NEA HIGHER EDUCATION JOURNAL | 33

 By 1890 several of Langdell’s own students had been appointed to the
HLS faculty, and the two senior professors who had remained skeptical of
case method were producing casebooks of their own. At the same time,
Langdell’s case method began to move outside of HLS.
In the late 1880s, an exchange among four articles initiated the pro-
fessional debate in the press regarding the new pedagogy.39 In 1888 the
president of the Imperial University in Tokyo wrote to President Eliot
requesting him to nominate a professor to teach Anglo-American
jurisprudence by case method. Eliot
complied, and an HLS graduate was
‘He simply talked, duly sent to Tokyo to begin teaching
early in 1889.40 In 1891 the editors
slowly and quietly, of the Harvard Law Review observed
“The Increasing Influence of the
stating, explaining, Langdell Case System of Instruction”
enforcing and and noted its adoption or praise by
English law professors. It soon
reinforcing the migrated to Australia, as well.41

principles.’
In the United States, the first whole-
hearted adoption of case method
occurred at Columbia University law
school in 1891, followed by the law schools at Northwestern University
and Western Reserve University in 1892. Then, in the mid-1890s, came
Cornell, Cincinnati, Stanford, Illinois, Hastings, and New York
University. Professors of the undergraduates at Dartmouth College,
University of Kansas, Knox College, and Massachusetts Institute of
Technology also adopted the new pedagogy.42 From there the movement
grew with increasing speed.
Langdell never wrote or spoke on behalf of extending case method.
Certainly, this was due, in part, to his personal reluctance to engage in any
efforts at self-promotion. But another factor was that Langdell began to
go blind just as his case method started to receive acceptance, and this
forced him to change his mode of teaching. One student observed,
“Professor Langdell’s sight was somewhat defective as early as 1880. This
defect increased with advancing age, and as it increased he gradually
changed his method of instruction. He finally abandoned the Socratic
method and stated and analyzed the cases himself.”43 Another student
who matriculated in 1884 explained the interrelated pedagogical, intel-
lectual and emotional impact of this “defect” upon Langdell:
In our time, as a result of his failing sight, he never used the Socratic
method in his teaching. He simply talked, slowly and quietly, stating,
explaining, enforcing and reinforcing the principles which he found in the
case under discussion....Only now and then, when some subtle point was

34 | Thought & Action SUMMER 2004

 raised by [a student]...his face would light up, and he would begin to think
aloud, to the vast delight of those members of his class who could follow
him.44

I n the gathering darkness, Langdell nevertheless stayed the course tena-

ciously through his retirement as a professor in 1900, after 30 years. As
President Eliot recalled,
A striking characteristic of Professor Langdell was courage...illustrated
by his going about alone on foot by day and by night in the streets of
Cambridge, when he could hardly see anything, especially in the glare of
bright sunshine. His daily walks between Austin Hall and his house were
terrifying to onlookers, particularly after the advent of the automo-
bile....Then he had to trust that the chauffeurs would see that a blind man
was crossing the broad street. For several years he was quite unable to go
alone on an unfamiliar path. This helplessness was a great trial to a man
who had always been self-reliant in high degree; but he bore the calamity
with unfaltering patience.45

In this fashion, Langdell remained an inspiration to the end. He tried

to find his own way for as long as he could. Similarly, the essence of the
case method that he bequeathed to higher education was to teach stu-
dents to examine the evidence directly and to rely on their own powers of
perception and judgment, rather than outside authorities, regardless of
their prestige or repute. His students surely embraced these maxims
because they saw that Professor Langdell followed them in his own life.

ENDNOTES
1 “Dean Langdell,” Boston Daily Advertiser (7 July 1906): 4.
2 “Professor Langdell is Dead,” Boston Evening Record (6 July 1906): 1.
3 C.C. Langdell, A Selection of Cases on the Law of Contracts (Boston: Little Brown, 1870).
4 The Centennial History of the Harvard Law School, 1817-1917 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
Law School Assn., 1918): 35.
5 Bruce A. Kimball, “The Proliferation of the Case Method Teaching in Legal Education,
1890-1915,” forthcoming in History of Education Quarterly. Robert Stevens, Law School:
Legal Education in America from the 1850s to the 1980s. (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1983): 117.
6 Copeland, “The Genesis of the Case Method in Business Instruction,” 25.
7 Tosteson et al, eds., New Pathways to Medical Education, 88, 160-162.
8 Batchelder, “C.C. Langdell, Iconoclast,” 312n. The following material is drawn from
“Young Christopher Langdell, 189-239.
9 Langdell, A Journey through the Years, 56.
10 Letter from Charles C. Grafton to Charles Warren (28 Oct. 1907) in Charles Warren
Papers.
11 George Washington University, Bulletin of the School of Law, 1890-1891, 4-5.

THE NEA HIGHER EDUCATION JOURNAL | 35

 12 Letter from Charles E. Phelps to Charles Warren (29 Sept. 1907) in Charles Warren
Papers.
13 Atwood, Old Folks’ Day, 18.
14 Ames, “Christopher Columbus Langdell, 1826-1906,” 475, 484.
15 Eliot, “Some Cambridge Pundits and Pedagogues,” 29.
16 Fessenden, “Rebirth of the Harvard Law School,” 505, 513.
17 Ames, “Christopher Columbus Langdell, 1826-1906,” 488.
18 Batchelder, “Christopher C. Langdell,” 438.
19 Horowitz, Campus Life, 33.
20 See “The Langdell Problem,” 97.
21 Schofield, “Christopher Columbus Langdell,” 273-277.
22 Quoted in Latin, this maxim came from the famous English jurist, Sir Edward Coke
(1552-1631).
23 Langdell, “Notebooks of Lectures on Partnership,” v. 2, leaf 56.
24 Fessenden, “Rebirth of the Harvard Law School,” 513.
25 Schofield, “Christopher Columbus Langdell,” 277.
26 Ames, Annotated copy of Langdell, Cases in Equity Pleading, 32.
27 Whitney, Annotated copy of Langdell, Cases in Equity Pleading, 32.
28 Ames, “Christopher Columbus Langdell, 1826-1906,” 484.
29 Batchelder, “Christopher C. Langdell,” 440-441.
30 Kalman, “To Hell with Langdell!” 771-773; Guinier, Becoming Gentlemen.
31 Fessenden, “Rebirth of the Harvard Law School,” 508.
32 Gloag, “Christopher Columbus Langdell,” 231.
33 Batchelder, “Christopher C. Langdell,” 440-441; Fox, “Professor Langdell,” 7-8.
34 Grinnell, “An Unpublished Conversation with President Eliot.”
35 Fessenden, “Rebirth of the Harvard Law School,” 500.
36 Batchelder, “Christopher C. Langdell,” 441.
37 Letter from Louis D. Brandeis to Otto A. Wehle (12 March 1876).
38 Holmes, “Oration,” 39.
39 Fisher, “The Teaching of Law by the Case System,” 416-421; Bishop, “The Common Law
as a System of Reasoning,” 1-29; Gray, “Cases and Treatises” 756; Schouler, “Cases
without Treatises,” 1-10. See the bibliography on case method teaching in The
Centennial History of the Harvard Law School, 365-71.
40 Letter from President Hiromato Watanabe to Charles W. Eliot (28 August 1888); Letter
from Alexander Tison to Charles W. Eliot (10 March 10 1889), in Charles W. Eliot
Papers, Harvard University Archives.
41 “The Increasing Influence of the Langdell Case System of Instruction.” Harvard Law
Review 5 (1891-1892): 89-90. See Notes, Harvard Law Review 1 (1887-8), 251, 298;
Letter from Boston Book Co. to James B. Thayer (18 April 1901) in James B. Thayer
Papers, Special Collections, Harvard Law School Library, box 17, folder 2.
42 Letter from James F. Colby to James B. Thayer (31 March 1894), Letter from Charles F.
A. Currier to James B. Thayer (20 March 1895), Letter from Frank Heywood Hodder to
James B. Thayer (6 April 1898) in James B. Thayer Papers.
43 Schofield, “Christopher Columbus Langdell,” 277.
44 Beale, “Professor Langdell—His Later Teaching Days,” 9-10.
45 Eliot, “Langdell and the Law School,” 525.

36 | Thought & Action SUMMER 2004

WORKS CITED
Ames, James Barr. Annotated copy of Langdell, Cases in Equity Pleading, Selected with Special
Reference to the Subject of Discovery...Prepared for Use as a Text-Book in Harvard Law School
[Part I]. Cambridge: Printed for the Author, 1875.
______________. “Christopher Columbus Langdell, 1826-1906,” in Great American
Lawyers, vol. 8, edited by William D. Lewis. Philadelphia: John C. Wilson, 1909.
Atwood, F.A.D. Old Folks’ Day, New Boston, N.H., June 13, 1907, Thirteenth Reunion.
Manchester, N.H.: John B. Clarke, 1908.
Batchelder, Samuel F. “C.C. Langdell, Iconoclast,” in Bits of Harvard History. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1924.
_________________. “Christopher C. Langdell,” Green Bag 18 (1906).
Beale, Joseph H., Jr. “Professor Langdell—His Later Teaching Days,” Harvard Law Review 20
(1906).
Bishop, Joel B. “The Common Law as a System of Reasoning,” American Law Review 22
(1888).
Letter from Louis D. Brandeis to Otto A. Wehle (12 March 1876) in The Family Letters of
Louis D. Brandeis, edited by Melvin I. Urofsky and David W. Levy, 4. Norman,
Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002.
The Centennial History of the Harvard Law School, 1817-1917. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Law
School Assn., 1918.
Copeland, Melvin T. “The Genesis of the Case Method in Business Instruction,” in The
Case Method at the Harvard Business School, edited by Malcolm P. McNair. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1954.
“Dean Langdell,” Boston Daily Advertiser (7 July 1906): 4.
Eliot, Charles W. “Langdell and the Law School,” Harvard Law Review 33 (1920).
_____________, Papers, Harvard University Archives, box 76, folder 1888-1889.
Eliot, Samuel A. “Some Cambridge Pundits and Pedagogues,” Proceedings of the Cambridge
Historical Society 26 (1940).
Fessenden, Franklin G. “Rebirth of the Harvard Law School,” Harvard Law Review 33
(1920).
Fisher, Sydney G. “The Teaching of Law by the Case System,” American Law Register, n.s. 27
(1888).
Fox, Austen G. “Professor Langdell—His Personal Influence,” Harvard Law Review 20
(1906).
George Washington University, Bulletin of the School of Law, 1890-1891 (Washington, D.C.,
1890).
Gloag, Ralph W. “Christopher Columbus Langdell,” Albany Law Journal 68 (1906).
Gray, James C. “Cases and Treatises,” American Law Register, n.s. 22 (1888).
Grinnell, Frank W. “An Unpublished Conversation with President Eliot at the Beginning of
Langdell’s Teaching,” ([c.1929]; typescript, 1 page), Biographical File of Christopher
Columbus Langdell, Harvard University Archives.
Guinier, Lani. Becoming Gentlemen: Women, Law School, and Institutional Change. Boston:
Beacon Press, 1997.
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr. “Oration,” in Report of the Organization and of the First General
Meeting, 1886. Boston: Harvard Law School Association, 1887.
Horowitz, Helen F. Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth
Century to the Present. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1987.
“The Increasing Influence of the Langdell Case System of Instruction.” Harvard Law Review
5 (1891-1892).
Kalman, Laura. “To Hell with Langdell!” Law & Social Inquiry 20 (1995).

THE NEA HIGHER EDUCATION JOURNAL | 37

 Kimball, Bruce A. “The Langdell Problem: A Century of Historiography in Light of the Sources,
1906-2000s,” in Law & History Review 22 (2004): 277-227.
______________. “Young Christopher Langdell: The Formation of an Educational
Reformer, 1826-1854.” Journal of Legal Education 52 (2002): 189-239.
Langdell, C.C. A Selection of Cases on the Law of Contracts with References and
Citations...Prepared for Use as a Text-Book in Harvard Law School. Boston: Little Brown,
1870.
____________, The Papers of, Special Collections, Harvard Law School Library, boxes 2-12.

____________, “Notebooks of Lectures on Partnership and Commercial Paper [1870-71],”

2 vols. Bound Manuscript Collection, Harvard Law School Library.
____________, “The Proliferation of the Case Method Teaching in Legal Education, 1890-
1915,” forthcoming in History of Education Quarterly.
Langdell, Marion E. A Journey through the Years. Cudahy, WS: privately printed, 1978.
“Professor Langdell is Dead,” Boston Evening Record (6 July 1906): 1.
Schofield, William. “Christopher Columbus Langdell,” American Law Register 55 o.s., 46
n.s. (1907).
Schouler, James. “Cases without Treatises,” American Law Review 23 (1889).
Stevens, Robert. Law School: Legal Education in America from the 1850s to the 1980s. Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983.
Tosteson, Daniel C. et al, eds. New Pathways to Medical Education: Learning to Learn at
Harvard Medical School. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994.
Thayer, James B. Papers, Special Collections, Harvard Law School Library, box 17, folders
1-2.
Warren, Charles. Papers, Special Collections, Harvard Law School Library, box 37.
Whitney, Charles L.B. Annotated copy of Langdell, Cases in Equity Pleading, Selected with
Special Reference to the Subject of Discovery...Prepared for Use as a Text-Book in Harvard Law
School [Part I] Cambridge: Printed for the Author, 1875.

38 | Thought & Action SUMMER 2004