HOLMES, EARLY STAGE

...The reader closes this book with the happy thought that more volumes are to come...

...war, an analysis of the state of philosophy at this time, a description of his trip to Europe in 1866, and the .beginnings of his apprenticeship in law as a clerk in a Boston law office...

...The major factors in Holmes' early years of apprenticeship, according to Howe, were his Puritan heritage, the mind and temperament of his celebrated father, his Civil War experiences, Harvard College and later the Harvard Law School, his intellectual friends both in Boston and England, the philosophers of emperi-cism, and his early associates in the legal profession...

...Since Holmes' life was largely a life of the mind, Howe undertakes to describe how such a mind was formed...

...There follow an ac-f$MBt of his law studies right after ; the...

...All this is borne out in this first installment, for the volume is both a sensitive and a learned exposition of what the author calls the years of apprenticeship...

...would seem that as a distinguished legal scholar, a long-time denizen of Cambridge, and a man of genuine learning in wide areas of knowledge, Howe qualifies very well for the exacting post of Holmes biographer...

...Now, at long last, we have the first installment of what promises to be a "definitive" biography...

...Reviewed by David Fellman ALTHOUGH Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was, by almost any standard of judgment, one of the truly great giants of the American bench and bar, we have never had an adequate, full-scale biography of the man...

...He thinly ¦¦npaftdence, if properly studied, Hwp strong ties of understanding HSpftffection between them...

...The gaps in the story are due to gaps in the available stock of original materials, for Howe writes as an objective historian and not as a writer of fiction...

...There are indeed few who are eligible even to undertake the task of writing a thoroughly satisfactory biography of Holmes...

...Of course SHjCi'vil War obviously had a pro-jfifid impact upon Holmes, and jjEwe devotes two lengthy chapters JBthe subject...

...Previously Howe had edited the Civil War letters and diary of Holmes, the two volumes of Holmes-Pollock letters, and the two volumes of Holmes-Laski letters...

...To be sure, a number of books have been written about him ranging from personal memoirs (Bid-die) and interpretations (Frankfurter, Lerner) to fairly substantial histories (Bowen, Bent), and innumerable articles in the learned journals and popular magazines, but no one has ever done the subject full justice...

...He takes the story from Holmes' birth in 1841 down to 1870, relying almost entirely upon written and published sources...

...Howe elaborates the point that the now-traditional view of the sharp antipathy between the father and the son is much exaggerated...

...Though Howe has recounted only the story of the early years, many qualities which we now associate with Holmes were clearly developed at an early stage of his life: his aversion to do-goodism and reform, his utter lack of interest in political affairs, his belief in the necessity of working out a scientific ordering of legal principles, his taste for philosophical empiricism, his interest in scientific thinking, his skepticism and distrust of absolutes, including jus own, his respect for the convictions of people with whom he disagreed, his passion for hard work, and his tremendous yearning for appreciation...

...The story ends with his assumption of the co-editorship of the American Law Review, his appointment as lecturer on constitutional law in Har-^vard College, and the beginning of '-his work as editor of the twelfth edition of Kent's Commentaries, all of which occurred in 1870...

...Here the second volume will begin...

...It has been well known for some years, however, that Mark De Wolfe Howe, professor of law ait Harvard, and secretary to Justice Holmes from 1933 to 1934, was working on a comprehensive biography, with complete access to all surviving family and personal papers...

...The ¦Mpcr on Harvard College gives us jMpightful and informative picture gKnat higher education was like in flbkfeta 1850's, and reveals that Mhii was a spirited as well as aSmsticated young man...

...The biographer would also have to understand thoroughly the peculiar climate of opinion that prevailed in Boston and Cambridge, especially among the intellectual aristocracy of the area...

...He would have to know his way around both in the field of formal philosophy and in literature generally, for Holmes had been primarily a man of thought...

...First of all, the author must have a considerable knowledge of the law, including the history of the common law and the convolutions of modern legal theory...