ABSTRACT
Dean Pound has discussed the call and the ferment. The general terms in which he described the fermenters we seemed to recognize: “the oncoming generation of American law teachers”. There were more specific attributes which also struck responsive chords: “By realism they mean fidelity to nature, accurate recording of things as they are, as contrasted with things as they are imagined to be, or wished to be.” Distrust of traditional legal rules and concepts insofar as they purport to describe what either courts or people are actually doing. “There is a distinct advance in their frank recognition of the alogical or non-rational element in judicial action which the legal science of the nineteenth century sought to ignore.” The belief in the worthwhileness of grouping cases and legal situations into narrower categories than has been the practice in the past. This is connected with the distrust of verbally simple rule—which so often cover dissimilar and nonsimple fact situations.
