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44 Am. L. Rev. 12 (1910)
Law in Books and Law in Action

handle is hein.journals/amlr44 and id is 16 raw text is: 44 AMERICAN LAW REVIEW. LAW IN BOOKS AND LAW IN ACTION. When Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn had determined top rescue Jim by digging under the cabin where he was con- fined, it seemed to the uninformed lay mind of Huck Finn that some old picks the boys had found were the proper implements to use. But Tom knew better. From reading he knew what was the right course in such cases, and he called for case-knives. It don't make no difference, said Tom, how foolish it is, it's the right way-and it's the regular way. And there ain't no other way that ever I heard of, and I've read all the books that gives any informa- tion about these things. They always dig out with a case- knife. So, in deference to the books and the proprieties, the boys set to work with case-knives. But after they had dug till nearly midnight and they were tired and their hands were blistered, and they had made little progress, a light came to Tom's legal mind. He dropped his knife and, turn- ing to Huck, said firmly, Gimme a case-knife. Let Huck tell the rest: He had his own by him, but I handed him mine. He flung it down and says, 'Gimme a case-knife.' I didn't know just what to do-but then I thought. I scratched around amongst the old tools and got a pickaxe and give it to him, and he took it and went to work and never said a word. He was always just that particular. Full of principle. Tom had made over again one of the earliest discoveries of the law. When tradition prescribed case-knives for tasks for which pickaxes were better adapted, it seemed bet- ter to our forefathers, after a little vain struggle with case- knives, to adhere to principle-but use the pickaxe. They granted that law ought not to change. Changes in law were full of danger. But, on the other hand, it was highly inconvenient to use case-knives. And so the law has always managed to get a pickaxe in its hands, though it stead-

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