18913 Organization Details 



tudes of applications for positions in the new insti- 

 tution, these last in addition to some thousands of 

 others already classified and stowed away in a trunk 

 at the Stanford residence in San Francisco. But 

 the Senator had quizzically advised me to select my 

 faculty before examining the documents, as they 

 might be confusing. I took the hint, and never even 

 opened the trunk, which was destroyed with all its 

 contents in the earthquake-fire of 1906. 



In great need of immediate help I was fortunate Secretary 

 enough to secure at once the services of Dr. Orrin ^'''°" 

 Leslie Elliott, a young man of discretion and scholar- 

 ship, formerly secretary to President White, then 

 instructor in English and assistant registrar at 

 Cornell. In his hands I placed my enormously 

 swollen correspondence, at the same time appointing 

 him registrar of the university which was to be — a 

 position he has continued to hold for thirty years. 

 I now proceeded to select others as the nucleus of 

 a faculty, naturally turning first to men who had 

 been thoroughly tested — Branner, Campbell, Gil- 

 bert, and Swain. I next prepared a preliminary an- 

 nouncement entitled "Circular No. 3." Numbers i 

 and 2, already published by Mr. Stanford, contained 

 respectively the deed of gift and the addresses made 

 at the laying of the Quadrangle cornerstone. 



** Circular No. 3" marked an epoch in my own Cuiding 

 experience, if not in the history of American edu- p^'^'^p^" 

 cation. In it I announced (with Mr. Stanford's 

 general approval) certain guiding principles to be 

 observed in the Leland Stanford Junior University. 

 These I may here briefly summarize. 



The first aim would be to secure and retain teachers of high- 

 est talent, successful also as original investigators. Work in 



C 357 3 



