96 A Centennial History of p
the country that conferred degrees. There were seven in the  
South and five in the Mississippi Valley. Those nearest Louis- }
ville were the law school of Transylvania University in ,
Lexington, founded in 1799; the Cincinnati Law School,  
founded in 1833, and the law school of Indiana University, i
founded in 1842. Tulane and Cumberland were opened in i
1847, and many others followed. The only law schools in the
South that did not suspend operations during the War between
the States and the reconstruction period were those of the
i University of Louisville and the University of Virginia.2
Law schools in general were loosely organized in those
early days. They seldom had more than a nominal connection
with a college or a university, and that was merely to acquire
the right to confer degrees in the name of some recognized
educational institution. The only law schools in the country
in which the faculties received any financial support from the
university were those at Harvard, Virginia, and William and
i Mary. In practically all the other schools, law professors were
practitioners who got what they could from tuition, which
they themselves collected, and concerning which they made
no reports. A prominent lawyer would gather about him a
class of students whom he proposed to instruct in law, and
by some friendly gentleman’s agreement, in order to give his
classes some academic standing, he would arrange with a col-
lege or a university to confer degrees upon certain students
, whom he saw fit to recommend for such an honor. Naturally,
such an arrangement was a good advertisement for the teacher,
. and in many instances very profitable. Many law schools
were thus started from proprietary law classes.
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