Precedent is solidified experience. In the realm of ideas it is canned goods.
It is very useful when fresh ideas are not to be had.
There are advantages in doing things just because they always have been done. You know what will happen. When you do new things you do not know what will happen.
Success implies not only sound reasoning, but also the variable factor of how a thing will work, which is found out only by trying it.
Hence, the surest road to success is to use a mixture of precedent and initiative. Just how much of each you will require is a matter for your judgment.
To go entirely by precedent you become a mossback. You are safe, as a setting hen or a hiving bee is safe. Each succeeding generation acts the same way. There is a level of efficiency, but no progress.
Boards, trustees, and institutions lay great stress upon precedent, as they fear responsibility. To do as our predecessors did shifts the burden of blame a bit from our shoulders.
The precedent is the haven of refuge for them that fear to decide.
Courts of law follow precedent, on the general theory that experience is more just than individual decision.
Precedent, however, tends to carry forward the ignorance and injustice of the past.