Three different courses occur to the Committee. The edifice containing the library and lecture-rooms may be called after him, Story Hall. Or the branch of the University devoted to law may be called Story Law School, as the other branch of the University devoted to science, in gratitude to a distinguished benefactor, is called Lawrence Scientific School. Or a new and permanent professorship in the Law School may be created, with his name.
If the last suggestion should find favor, the Committee recommend that the professorship be of Commercial Law and the Law of Nations. It is well known to have been the desire of Professor Story, often expressed, in view of the increasing means of the Law School, and the corresponding demands for education in the law, that professorships of both these branches should be established. In his opinion that of Commercial Law was most needed. His own preëminence in this department appears in his works, and especially in numerous judicial opinions. His interest in it was attested in conversation with one of this Committee only a few days before his death. Hearing that it was proposed by merchants of Boston, on his resignation of the judicial seat he had held for nearly thirty-four years, to cause his statue in marble to be erected, he said: "If Boston merchants wish to do me honor in any way, on my leaving the bench, let it not be by a statue, but by founding in the Law School a professorship of Commercial Law." With these generous words he embraced at once his favorite law and his favorite University.
The subject of Commercial Law is of great and growing importance in the multiplying relations of mankind. Every new tie of commerce gives new occasion for its application. Besides the general principles of the Law of Contracts, it comprehends the Law of Bailments, Agency, Partnership, Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes, Shipping, and Insurance,—branches of inexpressible interest to lawyers, merchants, and indeed to every citizen. The main features of this law are common to all commercial nations; they are recognized with substantial uniformity, whether at Boston, London, or Calcutta, at Hamburg, Marseilles, or Leghorn. In this respect they may be regarded as part of the Private Law of Nations. They would be associated naturally with the Public Law of Nations,—embracing, of course, the Law of Admiralty, and that other branch, which it is hoped will remain forever a dead letter, the Law of Prize.
The Committee believe that all who become acquainted with this statement will agree that something should be done to commemorate the obligations of the University to one of its most eminent professors and largest pecuniary benefactors. They have ventured suggestions as to the manner in which this may be accomplished, not with any particular confidence in their own views, but simply as a mode of opening the subject, and bringing it to attention. In dwelling on the propriety of a new and permanent professorship, they would not be understood as expressing a preference for this form of acknowledgment. It may be a question, whether the services of Professor Story, important in every respect, shedding upon the Law School a lasting fame, and securing to it pecuniary competence, an extensive library, and a commodious hall, can be commemorated with more appropriate academic honors than by giving his name to that department in the University of which he was the truest founder. The world, anticipating all formal action of the University, has already placed the Law School under the guardianship of his name. It is by the name of Story that this seat of legal education has become known wherever jurisprudence is cultivated as a science.
For the Committee.
Charles Sumner.
To the Overseers of Harvard University.