Word: seavey
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...large class at the Law School some years ago, a student had brought up the topic of crooked politicians and to illustrate his argument, he named a few of the bosses of the day. At this point Warren A. Seavey, Bussey Professor of Law, interrupted. Quite off-handedly, he suggested that the student could use the current mayor of Boston, James Michael Curley, as an equally good example of a dishonest politician. Seavey did not know as he said this that Mayor Curley's son was sitting in the front row of the class...
...ignorance did not last very long, however. The son ceremoniously withdrew from the Law School because his father's honor had been insulted, and Mayor Curley made a public statement to explain his son's action. News of the affair reached as far as the newspapers of Shanghai, Seavey recalls...
...discomfort and outraged cries produced by this incident are typical of the reactions Seavey has been eliciting from his students throughout his teaching career. In most cases, however, the effect is intentional--the desired response to a purposely acid classroom technique. Indeed, his teaching method has often been considered the classic example of the Socratic method in legal instruction, the question and answer system which teaches students by exasperating them...
...Socratic" is just one description; exasperated law students being what they are, others are unprintable. Yet most lawyers who have studied under Seavey would probably agree with Frank Pace, Jr., former Army Secretary, who calls the professor's questions "infuriating" but adds that they "caused us to ponder our own solutions and eventually to reach others more sound." Roscoe Pound places Seavey "among the outstanding teachers in the history of the Harvard Law School." Such tributes are particularly appropriate now, incidentally, for Professor Seavey is retiring this June after 50 years of teaching...
...Seavey, 50 years of studying and teaching such subjects as torts, agency, and restitution have been more colorful than many would imagine. A native of Boston, he graduated from the College and the Law School, entering practice locally in 1904. Two years later, at the suggestion of Dean Ames, he left for China to organize a law school at the Imperial Pei Yang University. For his five years of work there the Chinese government decorated him with the Order of the Double Dragon--which he says, means virtually nothing...