Nathaniel L. Nathanson
In His Own Words
From “The Mystery of Teaching Law”—a speech given by Professor Nathaniel Nathanson at a Northwestern Law School Alumni-Faculty Luncheon on October 5, 1976.
“As the time approaches for a final parting, one becomes more acutely conscious of all the good things that one has for too long simply taken for granted... Naturally, I wonder how I will survive without all of these amenities; but I have no doubt that the Law School will survive...Though the mystery of teaching law may never be solved, so many varieties of the art will be practiced that surely any student with some natural affinity for the study, the practice or even the teaching of law, will find the key which will open a path to salvation. Some will find it on the rarified atmosphere of law review or journal writing, some in the grubbier but more realistic atmosphere of the legal clinics, some in the drama of moot court competition, some in the intensive, solitary splendor of Senior Research, and some even in the daily challenge of the Socratic Method. I am reinforced in this belief every time I stay down relatively late at School and walking through the Library after normal closing hours, see how many students are still immersed in their own projects, surrounded by mountains of books and papers. Somehow that always gives me a good feeling--the feeling that we must be doing something right, and that we are all in this together, though each in his own cubicle, each pursuing his own standard of excellence in his own peculiar way.”
(Reprinted in The Reporter (Northwestern University School of Law) Winter 1977 at 8, 9.)
From Colleagues and Friends
From Tributes in the Northwestern University Law Review (Dec. 1983) and the San Diego Law Review (May-June 1985).
Kenneth Culp Davis
“Nat’s accomplishments as a legal scholar cannot be measured simply by saying that he was author or coauthor of seven books and author of more than fifty articles, for such numbers do not measure the quality or the influence. The proper measure of his scholarship might be the extent to which the legal system has responded to his ideas. That response has been very considerable...”
“...He was not a peddler of information about the law. As a teacher, he was an inquirer, and his objective was to help students to be inquirers. ...His students might be divided into two groups. One group liked Nat as a teacher. The other group loved Nat as a teacher.”
The Honorable Louis M. Welsh
“Around Nat, everyone had room for an opinion. He provided his students with opportunities to develop their own creativity and chart their own courses. The expression of opposing viewpoints never caused him to lose his benign smile or silence his laughter.”
Carl A. Auerbach
“Nat’s work reflects an unwavering philosophy of government. He participated in a creative government enterprise during wartime. He saw government not as a burden to be lifted from the backs of the American people but as vital to the well-being of the nation and the realization of the hopes of its citizens. ... He was one of the nation’s most creative legal scholars. ... His legacy will long endure.”
Willard H. Pedrick
“In retrospect, the light of reason surely dimmed a bit on the night of November 8, 1982, when a great mind, a great legal scholar, and a great teacher left our midst. For most of the world’s population, of course, there was no reason to know of this loss. Legal scholars and law teachers, however, renowned, are not public figures. But there are some of us who learned of his passing with shock, and who felt the loss, personally. Something over 5000 of us over nearly fifty years, had sat at the feet of that remarkable scholar and teacher, Professor Nathaniel L. Nathanson, as his students at Northwestern and at Arizona State and at the University of San Diego. We knew what he had done to and for us as our minds were stretched and our spirits lifted by this great teacher. We, his former students, know he had lasting impact on how we think about law, its place in our society, and how we think about life.”
W. Willard Wirtz
“The looming truth is that no one else we have known made as keen a mind the agent of so warm a heart. Clerk to justices and to justice herself, architect of legal education around the world, this gentle, unassuming giant of thought enlightened learning with love. We found from him that true wisdom is humble and generous and kind, and wears an understanding smile.”
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