Stanford University

“ Man is bounded by the limits of space, but the race once established on this planet of ours, we see no limit of time, no prospect of a twilight of gods in which the darkness shall fall on the world because universities are no longer needed. The center of gravity of Stanford University, of its student body, and of its influence on civilization, is hundreds of years, thousands of years ahead.
To the students of to-day, the professors of to-day, and the trustees of to-day, the university to-day belongs, but not as a personal possession ”

“ Stanford came back from the East and someone over in the Hall proposed that we give them a welcome home. We could get a bigger demonstration there in those days than you can now, I'll bet; you know everybody who was anybody at all lived in Encina then; that was the center of the College life, politics began and grew up there, and it was over there in the old lobby that we started the Stanford spirit. ”

“ In private life, Stanford was distinguished by his love of horses, and by his donations to the university founded in memory of his son. One must hold him inferior to Huntington in business affairs, vain and extravagant. Yet not only his political influence, but the virile power of the man, the attitude of mind which once led an enemy to say of him that “no she lion defending her whelps or a bear her cubs, will make a more savage fight than will Mr. Stanford in defense of his material interests,” were invaluable to the transcontinental railroad project in the years of its development. ”

“ Stanford has no other purpose in life than that of carrying out every detail of her husband's purposes. Her devotion has shown itself in maintaining the work of the university unimpaired during this period of hard times, while the estates are in probate, and therefore not available for university purposes. ”

“ And it was the university of which he was to become, in later successful years, a patron and trustee. Stanford did much for Herbert Hoover; but so has he done much for Stanford.
Any university means many things, for all their lives, to those who have come timidly and wonderingly to its doors as boys and girls, and have gone out on that final day of happy reward and tearful good-byes as men and women eager to try themselves against the world outside of sheltered school-rooms. And most of these things are to most persons who have known them, things of pleasant and loving memory. ”

“ These are stories of the University as it was before the era of new buildings. While the attempt has been made to create, in character, incident and atmosphere, a picture of Stanford life, the stories, as stories, are fiction, with the exception of "Pocahontas, Freshman," and "Boggs' Election Feed," which were suggested by local occurrences, and "One Commencement," which is mainly fact. The original draft of "His Uncle's Will" was printed in The Sequoia with the title "The Fate of Freshman Hatch." ”

“ Flanking the main buildings to the right is Encina Hall for the boys and Roble Hall for the girls, while across the campus are the new chemistry building and the museum. The large grounds are most carefully tended, and all the flowers and trees and shrubs that help beautify California find a home here. The walks and drives are delightful. There is no other alliance of buildings and surrounding grounds quite so pleasing as those of Stanford University. Tuition at the University is free, and the equipment is that naturally to be expected in the richest endowed university in the world. ”

“ The erection of Stanford has given an impetus to the State University, and both are doing noble work, not only for the Pacific coast, but for the whole country. One of the most noteworthy things in the history of American university education thus far is the fact that the university buildings erected by boards of trustees in all parts of the country have, almost without exception, proved to be mere jumbles of mean materials in incongruous styles ”

“ Stanford said in his address on the day of opening, "I speak for Mrs. Stanford as well as for myself, for she has been my active and sympathetic coadjutor, and is co-grantor with me in the endowment and establishment of this University."
They had been urged to give their fortune in other directions, as some persons believed that much education would unfit people for labor. "We do not believe," said Mr. Stanford, and the world honors him for his belief, "there can be superfluous education. As man cannot have too much health and intelligence, so he [Pg 224] cannot be too highly educated. ”

“ Stanford University (School of Engineering) http://see.stanford.edu View lecture videos, access reading lists and other course handouts, take quizzes and tests, and communicate with other SEE students. Stanford encourages fellow educators to use Stanford Engineering course materials in their own classrooms. A Creative Commons licence allows for free and open use, reuse, adaptation and redistribution of Stanford Engineering Everywhere material. ”

“ While the troubles at Stanford University are being widely discussed in the United States, English men of science are disturbed by the dismissal of a number of professors from the Royal Engineering College at Coopers Hill. This institution trains engineers for the Civil Service in India, and is under the control of the India Office. The president is an army officer who does not take part in the teaching, and is supposed to act under the direction of a board of visitors. The teaching staff, it appears, has no control of the curriculum or of the general conduct of the college. ”

“ Stanford, you understand, is a rival university, and they carry in triumph a battle-ax which they captured from this enemy many years ago; their military president and professors encourage this kind of play ferocity, as training for the setting up of slaughter-houses later on. These future world conquerors are pleased to portray themselves under the terrifying symbol of the Golden Bear. Almost every college is some kind of wild animal, you know; Princeton is a Tiger, and Yale is a Bull-dog, and they all sing songs about eating somebody up. ”

“ The higher education in the State is being put upon a secure basis. Hon. Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane Lathrop Stanford, have recently given a great part of their vast fortune for the establishment of a university which bids fair to be the foremost educational institution on the continent. In a letter specifying his views in regard to the management of the university, Governor Stanford says:
We deem it of the first importance that the education of both sexes shall be equally full and complete, varied only as nature dictates. ”

“ In case he turned out worthy, his life acquired the value and dignity of high purpose, even when the practical work of organizing an educational experiment gave him little time for scientific or literary production. Upon the indebtedness of such men at several seats of learning to President Jordan, this is not the time to dilate. Suffice it to say that at Stanford University, where of course his influence is at its height, he has drawn a large number of diverse and energetic personalities into abiding harmony touching matters that pertain to educational salvation. ”

“ This summer Stanford University extended the hospitality of its buildings for the sessions of the convention, and of its dormitories as lodgings for the delegates; but the faculty of the University and the citizens of Palo Alto learned to their surprise that one of the sessions of the convention was to be held at the Community House in the town of Palo Alto, instead of being held in the university hall. I have a letter from a gentleman who was present as an official guest at this session, and he explains the mysterious change of location. ”

“ American philosophers, young and old, seem scratching where the wool is short. Important things are being published; but all of them too technical. The thing will never clear up satisfactorily till someone writes out its resultant in decent English....
The reader will have understood "the Palo Alto summer" to refer to the lectures to be delivered at Stanford University during the coming spring. The Stanford engagement was again in James's mind when he spoke, in the next letter, of "dreading the prospect of lecturing till mid-May." ”

“ He wanted to be a trustee of the University of California, and when he failed, he decided to start a rival institution. When his only son died in early youth, the heart-broken old man chose this means of perpetuating the boy’s name, and he pledged to Leland Stanford, Jr., University his land, his racehorses, and a part of his railroad stock; also a valuable asset in the form of David Starr Jordan, a scientist and teacher with some real interest in democracy.
Senator Stanford died in the midst of the panic of 1893, and his university was in a predicament ”

“ 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. ”

“ First—Standing apart by itself there is the founding of a university by men enormously rich, such men as must necessarily be few in any [Pg 37] country. Perhaps the greatest sum ever given by an individual for any purpose is the gift of Senator Stanford, who undertakes to establish upon the Pacific coast, where he amassed his enormous fortune, a complete university, which is said to involve the expenditure of ten millions of dollars, and upon which he may be expected to bestow twenty millions of his surplus. ”

“ At my strong request we made a tower one day to see Stanford University, that immense schoolhouse that is doin’ so much good in the world; why, good land! it is larger than you have any idee on; why, take all the schoolhouses in Jonesville and Loontown and Zoar and put ’em all together, and then add to them all the meetin’ houses in all them places and then it wouldn’t be half nor a quarter so big as this noble schoolhouse.
And the grounds about it are beautiful, beautiful! We wuz shown through the buildin’, seein’ all the helps to learning of all kinds and the best there is in the world. ”

“ Each Saturday some of the boys came up and brought the campus news. One time, all enlisted Stanford tumbled out [Pg 273] of their tents, every last one of them, to welcome a big, slow-moving, slow-speaking man, who plays first-base at the Commencement Game. A corporal who had never been to college and who had a newspaper idea of students, asked if that was the football captain whom they were crowding around and almost trying to hug, and Marion answered no; that he was a bigger man than even the head coach. ”

“ The Substituted Fullback.
"Shadows, you say, mirages of the brain!
I know not, faith, not I;
Is it more strange the dead should walk again
Than that the quick should die?"
Aldrich.
"Frank Lyman, Football Manager, Stanford University:
"Blake died three forty-five. Body going East. I return five train. Diemann."
When he had sent this message to the University, the instructor in Psychology went gloomily down to the Third and Townsend Street station. ”

“ Back in the field stands the U. C. fullback, grimly waiting. The two collide, and the chasing halfback gains; but the Berkeley back drops to the tackle a fraction of an instant too late and runs fair against a straight-arm. Tom Ashley, with the ball clutched tight against his breast, his set face gleaming white in the half-light, sprints down the long barred space toward victory, keeping the distance between himself and the straining pack, running as only one man has ever run for Stanford. ”

“ Especially let her not be bound by vulgar traditions as to the cheapness or dearness of professorial service. The day is certainly about to dawn when some American university will break all precedents in the matter of instructors' salaries, and will thereby immediately take the lead, and reach the winning post for quality. I like to think of Stanford being that university. Geniuses are sensitive plants, in some respects like prima donnas. They have to be treated tenderly. They don't need to live in superfluity ”

“ I was thinking how fortunate I was to have been graduated from Stanford with such high honors, and how my good luck had stayed with me until I received my doctor's degree in a famous Eastern university and came out to take an associate professorship at the Berkeley campus.
I was watching the hurrying figures below on the crosswalks and idly noting the brilliant green of the shrubbery and the trees and the lawn. I was mixing up Keats with a bit of philosophy and thoroughly enjoying myself. Knowledge is truth, truth beauty, I mused, that is all we know on Earth, and all we need to know. ”

“ As to the public at large, in time they will judge us by our fruits, if we are allowed to live to bear fruitage. To a loyal friend of Governor Stanford, Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, I wrote this on June 20, 1894:
You will pardon me for writing to you to express my very great pleasure and that of Mrs. Stanford in the stand you have taken in defence of Senator Stanford's memory and in the effort you have made toward the protection of the university from the evil effects of prolonged litigation in which its endowment would be at stake. ”