1870-1964
Law Professor

Youthful Brilliance.

Roscoe Pound, who would become one of the twentieth century's most influential legal thinkers, was something of a child prodigy. He was already reading when he was three, and his mother taught him German when he was six. His first real passion was botany, and when he turned fourteen he entered the University of Nebraska in his hometown of Lincoln. After graduating with a degree in botany he studied law with his father, a local lawyer, and then spent a year at Harvard Law School. Convinced the law was not for him, he was willing and able to both practice and teach law while he pursued a doctorate in botany. He returned to Lincoln where he wrote his dissertation, "Phytogeography of Nebraska" (1898), while practicing law, serving as an assistant professor in the College of Law and teaching Roman law in the...