Content area
Full Text
INTRODUCTION
Vanderbilt University Law School is recognized today as offering one of the nation's preeminent programs in legal education.1
Its opening in Nashville in 1874, however, was inauspicious at best, and its operation during the remainder of the nineteenth century was marked principally by modest, incremental advances. Yet an examination of the Law School's creation and formative years reveals a rich tale of administrators, faculty, students, alumni, and supporters striving to fashion an enduring, high-quality institution. This Article recounts the story of Vanderbilt Law School in the nineteenth century.2
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES
Circumstances existing in the economy, the legal profession, and the world of legal education influenced Vanderbilt Law School's formation and evolvement.
The Economy. At the time of Vanderbilt University's founding, the country, particularly the South, was still recovering from the Civil War.3 The region was in such a precarious economic state that University founders struggled to secure the funds necessary to create the institution.4 But for the substantial contributions of Cornelius Vanderbilt, the University might have never come into being.5 Vanderbilt Law School, however, benefited little from Vanderbilt family funding.6 During the nineteenth century, the Law School was essentially a quasi-proprietary operation functioning under a lease arrangement with the University.7
Given these economic circumstances, pricing the Vanderbilt Law School educational product was a tricky matter.8 Administrators needed to set Law School tuition at an amount students could afford, but at a level sufficient to sustain the School's operations. At the time of its creation in 1874, the Law School pegged annual tuition at $120.9 This rate was the same amount charged at that time by established and thriving rival, Cumberland University School of Law in neighboring Lebanon, Tennessee.10 It soon became evident that $120 was unduly pricey, so in 1877 the annual Law School tuition at Vanderbilt was decreased to $80.(11) Apparently, this amount was determined by administrators to be excessively low. The following year (1878) annual tuition at Vanderbilt Law School was raised to $100,(12) a level maintained throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century.13 Interestingly, Cumberland School of Law lowered annual tuition to $100 at about this time (1879) and held it at that amount well into the twentieth century.14 Thus, these rival institutions offered competitive tuition for most of the last...