The Days of a Man D902 



Tht representing a high order of personal ability and 



Sianjord including leading men from California, Oregon, and 

 \lZufs Nevada. Until 1902 this body remained mainly 

 nominal, its functions being assumed by Mr. Stan- 

 ford during his lifetime, and for nine years afterward 

 by Mrs. Stanford because of conditions already amply 

 Actual explained. Technical disabilities having been at last 

 organi'ui- removcd, the board was now (October 5) actually 

 organized, with Mrs. Stanford as elected president. 

 But while most of the original members had then 

 passed away, the places of only a few had been filled. 

 For Mr. Stanford had agreed with me that the num- 

 ber should be reduced from twenty-five to fifteen — 

 thus making a more workable body — and that the 

 term of service of new members should be limited to 

 ten years instead of life tenure. 



I had also made an effort to secure provision 

 whereby a third or a half of the membership should, 

 after some specified date, be elected by the alumni 

 "Yde and not by the board itself. This system, originally 

 ^Icc'^piZ '^"^'"'^ ^^ "the Yale plan," afterward established at 

 Cornell by White and later In Indiana by me, I was 

 not able to secure for Stanford. But In the latter case 

 a special difficulty works against a large alumni rep- 

 resentation, as the Institution has always drawn most 

 of its students from a distance, about one third of 

 them still residing outside the state. A calculation 

 made in 1898, for Instance, showed that on the 

 average they then came from 1050 miles away, the 

 center of distribution of our "population" at that 

 tune being between Salt Lake City and Green River, 

 Wyoming. Relatively few, also, are from San 

 trancisco, mainly because of the nearness of the 

 Lniversity of California at Berkeley; and the great 



r 12^ ~\ 



