ABSTRACT
The upper-court myth and legal rule magic are plainly related, for the perpetuation of that myth, and for the widespread dissemination of the belief in that magic, American legal education must take considerable blame. The men who teach there, however interested some of them may once have been in the actualities of law offices and courtrooms, feel obliged to pay but subordinate regard to these actualities. Think of a medical school which would turn out graduates wholly ignorant of how medicine should be applied and is applied in daily life. The phrase "law in action" has remained largely a phrase; at any rate, so far as legal pedagogy is concerned, the function of the phrase, psychologically, has been principally to substitute a new verbal formula for revised conduct. In Rome, "legal" activities were divided up among three groups of men; the jurisconsults; the orators; and practical politicians, statesmen, and, during the late empire, bureaucratic officials.
