Note and Comment

The Death of Dean Thayer - The death on September 15th of Ezra Ripley Thayer, dean of the Harvard Law School, has brought irreparable loss not only to the institution which he had brilliantly served, but to the cause of legal education throughout the country. Dean Thayer was the rarely fine product of conditions and environment which have been perhaps the most richly fruitful that our nation has known. The son of a most distinguished legal scholar and teacher, he grew up in association with much that was best and most inspiring in Massachusetts and in the great university from which he was graduated in 1888 with the degree of A.B. and in i8g1 with the degrees of A.M. and LL.B. His record as a student in the Harvard Law School has seldom been equalled. For a year, 1891-2, he was secretary to Mr. Justice Gray of the United States Supreme Court, after which service he returned to Boston and began a career in the active practice of law, in which he soon -won recognition as a leader in his generation.