The legal profession discharges a most importantfunction in a civilized community, and it seems to me that adiscussion of the ethics and ideals of that profession wouldcome within the purpose of the Page foundation, which isdescribed by the donor as intended to promote "the ethicalside of business life, including the morals and ethics ofpublic service." I shall first ask your attention to the historyof the profession, which shows that a paid advocacy is theonly practical system, and to the rules of conduct to whichlawyers must be held in order that such a system shallpromote justice. I cannot claim to have any peculiarknowledge upon this subject other than that derived from asomewhat brief practice of five years at the Bar, from anexperience of eleven years on the Bench of trial andappellate courts, from a somewhat varied experience in theresponsibility of government, not only in this country, butin those far-distant isles of the Pacific in which the UnitedStates has been grafting the principles of free governmentupon a civilization inherited from Spain.