18923 Coeducation at Stanford 



men educated at Harvard or Yale, for it is some- 

 times difficult to convince elderly graduates of 

 either of these institutions that the system which 

 prevailed in their day is not the best possible. 

 Another opposing influence came from certain of 

 our Roman Catholic friends who hoped to establish 

 a branch college for girls at Menlo Park under 

 Stanford auspices, thus forming a separate "Annex" 

 for the women. This idea naturally met with no 

 favor from the University authorities, and Mrs. 

 Stanford herself resolutely refused to make any 

 change whatever in her husband's recognized pur- 

 poses. 



The women he had heartily welcomed from the 

 beginning, though with no expectation that their 

 number would approach that of the men; the 

 institution was to deal largely with the applications 

 of science and with advanced research in the various 

 fields of knowledge, for he had in mind a sort of 

 combination of Cornell and Johns Hopkins. After 

 his death, certain unforeseen complications threat- 

 ened to result in what he would have regarded as 

 an excess of women students. Mrs. Stanford, Changes 

 therefore, as acting sole trustee, felt obliged to ^"M^^' 

 place a limit on their number. Her action aroused 

 at the time a certain amount of criticism, though it 

 proved distinctly sound as a policy for the formative 

 period, and that for a twofold reason. 



During several years of litigation with which I 

 shall soon deal, we found ourselves unable to pro- 

 vide advanced courses in some special lines of study. 

 We were accordingly compelled to advise certain 

 upper classmen to go elsewhere to complete their 

 work; for the law students we suggested Harvard, 



C 421 3 



