Evidence of greatness
In the entrance to Harvard Law School’s Langdell Hall is a marble statue of long-ago professor Joseph Story, who is reputed to have saved legal studies at the University from an early demise. Only one student was enrolled at the Law School for the 1828-29 academic year. Story himself — who arrived in August 1829 as the first Dane Professor of Law — claimed there were none. At the time, Harvard Law School (HLS) — founded in 1817 — was barely a decade old. So it is for a good reason that generations of students have rubbed the forward left toe of the marble statue for luck. Without Story, a charismatic teacher and a sitting Supreme Court judge, the story of Harvard’s school of law — so celebrated today — would have been a short one. This fall, visitors to Langdell Hall have an opportunity to take a deeper look at the...