the needs of all parts of the county, a plan of such system is to be approved and recorded and thereafter all applications to the quarter sessions for the improvement of a road under the act are to be restricted to the development of such system.

By the Act of April 15, 1903,1 a state highway department was established, with a commissioner at its head, who is authorized to co-operate with the counties and townships in the reconstruction and improvement of the principal highways according to the plans adopted by the department, the cost to be apportioned and borne, sixty-six and two thirds per cent by the state, sixteen and two thirds per cent each by the county and township, provided that amount appropriated for state aid shall be apportioned among the counties according to their road mileage. Six million five hundred thousand dollars was appropriated to carry out this act, to be expended during six years, ten per cent of which was to be set aside for the purpose of maintenance where the conditions warranted the affording of state aid for such purposes. All highways constructed or improved under the provisions of this act are to be known as State Highways.

In passing rapidly over our system of road law apologies for the omission of much that is of interest as well as of importance are unnecessary. The subject has reached dimensions that can hardly be contained in a text book of reasonable size. The extraordinary number and variety of the statutes, with the decisions interpreting them, might drive a Bentham to despair, but has caused less inconvenience than might reasonably be expected, for the reason that the bar of the state is an aggregation of county bars, each familiar with the local practice and with few opportunities to test

1 P. L. 188, supplied by the Act of May 1, 1905, P. L. 318.

the disadvantages of its own, or the advantages of rival systems. Consequently no bar sentiment in favor of uniformity and simplicity has developed, and while there is no inherent difficulty in drafting a code, or series of codes, which, with the repeal of all local acts, would reduce the subject to order, local prejudices and conservatism would probably oppose such a movement. Minor reforms suggest themselves. The assignment of road cases to the quarter sessions, in accordance with colonial tradition, possesses no advantages, and is contrary to the modern tendency to confine the activities of that court to criminal matters.

As appeals from awards of viewers to the common pleas for a jury trial are the rule rather than the exception, the proceedings should have their inception in the latter court, as in change of grade cases under the Act of 1891. There is no reason why six viewers should be appointed to assess damages for the opening of streets in Philadelphia, when three are sufficient in change of grade cases, except to gladden the hearts and replenish the purses of the additional jurors. The method of presenting testimony as to values by expert witnesses is far from satisfactory, but that difficulty belongs to the law of evidence and is not confined to road cases.

Time may improve our roads and our road laws, but for the present no attorney delighting in the sharp points of the law need mourn for a field for his talents.

Criticism is frequently leveled at the adventitious growth of our law, at its want of system, its atavistic tendencies. But is this not true of other sciences as well? Can we not detect traces of folklore in religion, of magic in medicine? The deeper the foundations of a science the more securely is it buttressed by the rubbish of the ages.

Communities do not grow according to preconceived plans, nor does progress necessarily point to a prison

lockstep march toward a utopia of automatic activities. But in law, as in other sciences, there must be periodic revision of the accumulated material, otherwise the principles of social conduct will be lost sight of in a mass of unrelated and arbitrary rules. Statutes that are obsolete should be repealed, conflicting statutes reconciled, and ambiguous statutes restated. Local and special provisions that really serve no useful purpose should, in the interest of orderly administration, be replaced by general acts.

The present state of the statute book, representing as it does the accumulations of two centuries, is far from creditable to a community that claims to be progressive, and should be subjected to systematic revision, if only for the sake of clearness. The responsibility for this condition does not rest wholly upon the bar nor, in fact, upon any one class in the community. It results from the rapidity of our material development and the recurring necessity for immediate legislation, coupled with a fallacious belief in new statutes as a panacea for all the ills of the state. The disinclination to revise what has already been enacted is in part the result of an inherited conservatism, an unwillingness to tamper with what is written although imperfectly understood. Purely selfish interests, too, may unite to disfigure or destroy a well conceived plan for the unification of a branch of the statute law, as happened at the legislative session of 1909 when the proposed school law was cut to pieces to satisfy conflicting local claims.

Since the days of Bradford and Franklin the commonwealth has relied on private enterprise for compilations and digests of the statute law. But these, however creditable to their editors, cannot take the place of a systematic revision authorized by the state and ratified by legislative enactment. The private editor cannot say that any law is obsolete, he must print what he finds.

If he undertakes to decide that an act is repealed or supplied by implication and omits it from his text, there is no assurance that his opinion will be endorsed by the

courts.

While road law, owing to its local development, is a glaring example of the confusion that in time creeps into the statute book, it is by no means the only title that requires attention. The laws relating to corporations, municipalities, taxation, as well as other subjects, are in need of revision and unification. The education of the public to the economy of well drafted and properly classified statutes may be slow, but a progressive bar should assist in that education and be prepared to lend encouragement to any reasonable and practical plan for a systematic analysis and rearrangement of our statute law.