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Ernst Freund was born in New York City on January 30, 1864, during a visit of his family to the United States from their native Germany. Much of his education took place in Germany, a fact that significantly influenced his views on administrative law. He studied successively at Dresden, Frankfort, Berlin, and Heidelberg, receiving the J.U.D. degree from the University of Heidelberg in 1884. From 1886 to 1894 he was engaged in the practice of law in New York City. In 1892 he started his long career in teaching, beginning at Columbia College as professor of administrative law. He obtained a Ph.D. in political science from that institution in 1897.1 In 1894 he joined the newly created University of Chicago as professor of political science, teaching Roman Law and Jurisprudence. In 1902 he became a member of the original faculty of the law school. He was appointed the first John P. Wilson Professor of Law in 1929, a position which he held until his death on October 20,1932.2 II. What Is Administrative Law? In retrospect, it is relatively easy to see that the growth of the administrative process was, in the words of Mi. Justice Jackson, "the most significant legal trend of the last century... ."* But at the turn of the century, American legal scholarship was largely unaware of what was beginning to emerge. Two exceptions to this understandable unawareness existed in the persons of Frank Goodnow and Ernst Freund. Significantly enough, both men possessed not only backgrounds in the law, but also in political science. Goodnow seems to have been the first to use the term "administrative law" as an inclusive and descriptive term for the law governing the administrative process.4 Writing in 1894, Freund observed that until recently administrative law had attracted no attention from either English or American jurists. He noted that the field was not even distinguished by a commonly accepted name. He expressed the hope that the term "administrative law," as used by Goodnow the i His last degree, an honorary L.L.D., was bestowed upon him by the University of Michigan in 1931, one year before his death. |
