Roscoe Pound and Interpretations of Modern Legal Philosophies
![handle is hein.journals/nylr23 and id is 399 raw text is: ROSCOE POUND AND INTERPRETATIONS OF
MODERN LEGAL PHILOSOPHIES
SIDNEY POST SIMPSON
IN 1947, Roscoe Pound, University Professor at Harvard and
Dean of the Harvard Law School from 1916 to 1936, retired from
his academic post, in his seventy-seventh year. Most men would
have sought repose, especially after a career of distinction and
unremitting and producive work the like of which legal scholar-
ship has seldom seen; Pound became Adviser to the Chinese Minis-
try of Justice, and left for Nanking to undertake the task of
nfiodernizing and restating the law of the most populous nation of
the.world-a task described by President Conant of Harvard as
'the biggest job [Pound has] ever undertaken.'
This milestone in Dean Pound's life has not been allowed to
pass unnoticed. In 1947 there appeared a volume of essays in
Pound's honor, edited by Professor Paul Sayre of the State Uni-
versity of Iowa Law School, written for presentation to Pound on
his seventy-fifth birthday, and published under the title Interpreta-
tions of Modern Legal Philosophies. Thirty-eight scholars from
five continents contributed to the volume-lawyers, judges, law
teachers, sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, diplomats,
philosophers; the table of contents reads like an international
Who's Who in Jurisprudence. 'this was followed in 1948 by The
Life of Roscoe Pound, from Paul Sayre's own pen. Seldom has a
living man received such a massive combination of tributes.
I have been asked by the New York University Law Quar-
terly Review to attempt an appraisal of these two books, and in
that connection to say something as to Pound's place in juris-
prudence as it appears in the year 1948. But I must begin with
a confession of bias.
I am an admirer of Roscoe Pound. I have been ever since I
took his course in Torts at the Harvard Law School in 1919-20,
and he called me into his office after the examination to tell me,
to my complete amazement (and enormous relief), that I had
SIDNEY PosT S11 soN is Professor of Law in New York University Law School
and co-author with Professor Julius Stone of the University of Sydney, Australia,
of CASES AND RE.PnINGS ON LAW AND SocIETY, to be published in 1948 with an intro-
duction by Roscoe Pound.
1Letter from James B. Conant to Roscoe Pound, October 24, 1947, reprinted
in SAYPng, Lim or RoscoE Pomm 385 (1948),
Imaged with the Permission of N.Y.U. Law Review](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/nylr23&div=30&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Roscoe Pound and Interpretations of Modern Legal Philosophies
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