SKETCH OF DAVID STARR JORDAN. 549 



was probably the best man of his time at college, yet lie was rarely 

 seen to study. He paid his expenses in one way and another by 

 his own labor, yet he was a man of leisure. Despite his careless- 

 ness with respect to his personal appearance, and despite his 

 whimsical address, his spiritual qualities marked him out as a 

 man of fine breeding. 



As a teacher, Jordan makes the impression of weight, sincer- 

 ity, and simplicity. He rests down confidently upon the subject 

 and makes that speak. He has the instinct attributed by Matthew 

 Arnold to Wordsworth : he lets Nature speak through him " with 

 her own bare, sheer, penetrating power." Students say he is the 

 simplest of lecturers. Others may seem more profound because 

 less lucid. Perhaps Jordan does not see everything he does not 

 wish to see everything it is enough for him to see what is vital. 

 Those who have time may dwell, if they will, in the skirts and 

 suburbs of things ; Jordan strikes for the center. He has the 

 sense of an Indian for direction, and may be relied upon to bring 

 his followers out of the woods as promptly as any guide who could 

 be mentioned. 



As an administrator, Jordan is a man of distinguished per- 

 formance and splendid promise. In the course of six years he 

 raised the State University of Indiana from a condition of ob- 

 scurity and ineffectiveness to its present position in the front 

 rank of Western colleges. This he did in the face of very great 

 obstacles,, of which, perhaps, the remoteness of the seat of the 

 university and the parsimony of the State were the most for- 

 midable. His success was largely due to his policy of surround- 

 ing himself with a Faculty of young, energetic, progressive men, 

 and of keeping the university in touch with society at large. As 

 President of Stanford University he has to confront still greater 

 difficulties, but he has the enormous advantages of far greater 

 resources and of a vastly widened field of action. 



Jordan is singularly fitted for the multiform duties and per- 

 plexities of his present position. Physically and mentally he is 

 a massive man, as imperturbable as a mountain. He eats heartily, 

 sleeps soundly, and turns off his work promptly, almost impercep- 

 tibly. Labors which break down ordinary men he takes as easily 

 as a game of baseball, in which he delights ; grinding disappoint- 

 ments seem to affect him little more than does the defeat of the 

 Faculty team by the Freshmen. He is incapable of being inter- 

 rupted ; he will answer your questions and dispatch your business 

 while finishing the identification and description of a new species 

 of fish. He is impervious to the bore, not because he is thick- 

 skinned, but because he does not stop long enough to let the bore 

 insert his sting. His mind seems to be organized on the co-opera- 

 tive principle, so that he can carry on several lines of work simul- 



