David Starr Jordan

“ Pure science and utilitarian science merge into each other at every point. They are one and the same thing. Every new truth can be used to enlarge human power or to alleviate human suffering. There is no fact so remote as to have no possible bearing on human utility. Every new conception falls into the grasp of that higher philanthropy which rests on the comprehension of the truths of science. For science is the flower of human altruism. No worker in science can stand alone. ”

“ Men have slowly learned that the true glory of life lies in its wise conduct, in the daily act of love and helpfulness, not in the vagaries fostered by the priest or in the spasms of madness which are the culmination of war. To live here and now as a man should live constitutes the ethics of science, and this ideal has been in constant antithesis to the ethics of ecclesiasticism, of asceticism and of militarism. ”

“ Those who eat only sardines, packed in oil by greasy fingers, and herrings dried in the smoke, can have little idea how satisfying it is to have one's stomach full of them, plump and sleek, and silvery, fresh from the sea.
Thus they chased the herrings about and had a merry time. Then they were chased about in turn by great sea-lions, swimming monsters with huge half-human faces, long thin whiskers, and blundering ways. The sea-lions liked to bite out the throats of the salmon, with their precious stomachs full of luscious sardines, and then to leave the rest of the fish to shift for itself. ”

“ No one has ever struggled more loyally to do so than Mrs. Stanford. Since her husband died we have not received a dollar of his money, but the university has gone on without check or hindrance, though at times she has been forced to give up luxuries and to limit her expenses in every conceivable way. As a matter of fact, she has each year given me a personal bond for all she thinks that she can raise from the farms and from her own small personal property. Her devotion to the work is absolute and she is giving her life to it. When she loses, she will die. ”

“ It is for the students to see that no custom of idleness or of dissipation, no fashion of cynicism or of disloyalty ever becomes hardened into a tradition at Stanford University. It is for the professors to strengthen them in this decision, and to point out the best that men have ever thought or done, to lead the way to gentle breeding and the enthusiasm of noble thought. ”

“ Before these we count as nothing, for the students to come will number for each century about a hundred thousand. And there are many of these centuries, for the world is still very young, and a university once firmly rooted is as nearly eternal as human civilization itself can be. The university stands for the highest thought and wisest action possible for man, and the need of a university must endure so long as man exists ”

“ None counts for much who tries to do so. He must enter into the work of others. He must fit his thought to theirs. He must stand on the shoulders of the past, and must crave the help of the future. The past has granted its assistance, to the fullest degree of the most perfect altruism. The future will not refuse; and, in return, whatever knowledge it can take for human uses, it will choose in untrammeled freedom. ”

“ All men will work more sanely and more effectively as they realize that no good to religion or science comes from 'wishing to please God with a lie.'
It is the mission of science to disclose—so far as it goes—the real nature of the universe. Its function is to eliminate, wherever it be found, the human equation. By methods of precision of thought and instruments of precision of observation and experiment, science seeks to make our knowledge of the small, the distant, the invisible, the mysterious as accurate, as practical, as our knowledge of common things. ”

“ It is the struggle of the few realities or present sense impressions against the multitude of past impressions, suggestions and explanations. I have elsewhere said that the one great discovery of the nineteenth century—forestalled many ages before—was that of the reality of external things. Men have learned to trust a present fact or group of facts, however contradictory its teachings, as apposed to tradition and philosophy. From this trust in the reality of the environment of matter and force, whatever these may be, the great fabric of modern science has been built up. ”

“ The development of all science has been a constant struggle, a struggle of fact against philosophy, of instant impressions against traditional interpretations, of truth against 'make-believe' For men are prone to trust a theory rather than a fact; a fact is a single point of contact; a theory is a circle made of an infinite number of points, none of them, however, it may be, real points of contact.
The history of the progress of science is written in human psychology rather than in human records. ”

“ Says another correspondent: "Training in research is in fact essential to every technical man. The young technologist will be confronted by new problems not covered by anything in literature or in his past experience. Training in research is training in the art of solving unsolved problems, and the practical man who has had discipline of that kind has a great advantage over his more conventional competitors. The Germans recognize this principle, and behold their marvelous industrial growth. The student in every department of science should be taught to think as well as to do." ”

“ Unfortunately, university presidents still stand much in the way of the development of anatomy, for many of them seem to think that almost any one who wears the gown is good enough to become a professor of anatomy. Repeatedly have I witnessed the appointment of a know-nothing when a recognized young man might have been had for half the money." Our forces are dissipated, the fear of things scientific has destroyed even the practical in this noble old mother science which is still giving birth to new sciences and to brilliant discoveries. ”

“ Science is human experience of contact with environment tested, set in order, and expressed in terms of other human experience. Utilitarian science is that part of all this knowledge which we can use in our lives, in our business. What is pure science to one is applied science to another. The investigation of the laws of heredity may be strictly academic to us of the university, but they are utilitarian as related to the preservation of the nation or to the breeding of pigs. In the warfare of science the real in act and motive has been persistently substituted for the unreal. ”

“ War talk on either side is foolish and criminal. Japan recognizes the United States as her nearest neighbor among western nations, her best customer and most steadfast friend. Her own ambitions and interest lie in the restoration of Korea, the safeguarding of her investments in Manchuria and in the part she must play in the unforetold future of China. For her own affairs she needs every yen she can raise by any means for the next half century. For the future greatness of Japan depends on the return of "the old peace with velvet-sandalled feet," which made her the nation she is to-day. ”

“ And with all the activities of athletics, of scholarly research, of the applications of science to engineering, the spirit of "self-devotion and of self-restraint," by which lives have been "made beautiful and sweet" through all the centuries should rise above all else, dominating the lower aspirations and activities as the great church towers above the red tiles of the lower buildings. ”

“ The cause of tradition becomes that of theology;—for men have always claimed a religious sanction for their own individual bit of cosmic philosophy. Just as each man in his secret heart, the center of his own universe, feels himself in some degree the subject of the favor of the mysterious unseen powers, so does society in all ages find a mystic or divine warrant for its own attitude towards life and action, whatever that may be. ”

“ It is for the Board of Trustees and for the university executive to act as the balance wheel, guarding jealously the funds of the institution, that the generous present may not starve the future, and to see that no neglect or perversity of student or teacher shall work any permanent harm to the university whole. ”

“ But our hero did not falter, and, summoning all his forces, he plunged into the Cascades. The current caught him and dashed him against the rocks. A whole row of silvery scales came off and glistened in the water like sparks of fire, and a place on his side became black and red, which, for a salmon, is the same as being black and blue for other people. His comrades tried to go up with him; and one lost his eye, one his tail, and one had his lower jaw pushed back into his head like the joints of a telescope. ”

“ We need schools or laboratories of research for the training of the masters.
In the development of medicine there has been a steady movement away from universal systems and a priori principles, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, from blind empiricism, with the giving of drugs with sole reference to their apparent results. The applications of science—all sciences which deal with life, with force and with chemical composition—must enter into the basis of medicine. Hence the insistent demand for better preliminary training before entering on the study of medicine. ”

“ The time must come when a man who has no training and no experience in research will not be called educated, whatever may be the range of his erudition. To unfold the secret of power is the true purpose of education. ”

“ In the experience of a single human life there is little to correct even the crudest of theological conceptions. From the supposed greater importance of religious opinions in determining the fate of men and nations, theological ideas have dominated all others throughout the ages; and in the nature of things, the great religious bodies have formed the stronghold of conservatism against which the separated bands of science have hurled themselves, seemingly, in vain. ”

“ To those who helped her in these days she said: "We may lose the farms, the railways, the bonds, but still the jewels remain. The university can be kept alive by these till the skies clear and the money which was destined for the future shall come into the future's hands. The university shall be kept open. When there is no other way, there are still the jewels." Because there always remained this last resource, the woman never knew defeat. No one can who strives for no selfish end. ”

“ Last year, a treaty was concluded, Russia, Japan, Canada and the United States being parties to it, by which the matter was honorably and justly settled and the continuance and restoration of the three herds, American, Russian and Japanese finally assured. There is not now a single cloud above the official horizon as between the United States and Japan. There have never been any real difficulties and the apparent ones are no greater than must appear wherever great nations border on each other. As the Japanese are fond of saying: The Pacific Ocean unites our nations. ”

“ By processes of suggestion and conventionality the ideas of the individual become assimilated to those of the multitude. Thus myths arise to account for phenomena not clearly within the ordinary experiences of life. And in all mythology the unknown is ascribed not to natural forces, but to the action of the powers that transcend nature, that lie outside the domain of the familiar and the real.
It has been plain to man in all ages that he is surrounded by forces stronger than himself, invisible and intangible, inscrutable in their real nature, but terribly potent to produce results. ”

“ There should be no more students than could be well taken care of, no more departments than could be placed in master hands, no teachers to whom the students could not look up as to men whose work and life should be an inspiration to them. The buildings should be beautiful, for to see beautiful things in a land of beauty is one of the greatest elements in the refinement of clean men and women. Great libraries and great collections the university should have, but libraries and collections should be chosen for their fitness in the training of men. ”

“ The development of the profession of engineering in America has been the most remarkable feature of our recent industrial as well as educational progress. In this branch of applied science our country has come to the very front, and this in a relatively short time. To this progress a number of distinct forces have contributed. One lies in the temperament of our people, their motive force, and their tendency to apply knowledge to action. In practical life the American makes the most of all he knows. ”