The Men of the West 45 



nising the great man, protested that he had been 

 paid no more than his legal fare. " Your nephew," 

 said the fellow, " pays me three times as much." 



"Is that so?" replied Mr. Huntington. "Well, 

 you see, my friend, I have not a rich uncle — as he 

 has." 



What Mr. Huntington has been to the material 

 growth of the Pacific Slope, Doctor Jordan, of the 

 Leland Stanford Junior University, has been to 

 the more subtle development of the world unseen. 

 His influence to-day amongst the young men of 

 the West cannot be measured till to-morrow. In 

 a country where gold colours the very flowers of 

 the field, Doctor Jordan, like Agassiz, has had no 

 time to make money. He has refused preferment 

 again and again, cut down his salary, when the 

 university was in financial straits, laboured strenu- 

 ously in many fields without the labourer's wage, 

 and, in fine, has set an example of energy and 

 fortitude that thousands are striving to emulate. 

 But David Starr Jordan's friends — and their name 

 is legion — say that he does too much. He is a 

 world-famous ichthyologist, an international author- 

 ity upon natural science, a writer of note, a poet, 

 a lecturer, a journalist : the Charles Kingsley of 

 the New World. Is it not to be feared that this 

 Protean capacity of playing a dozen parts will work 

 evil rather than good ? The weakness and the 

 strength of the West lurk in its varied resources. 

 A child taken to a toy-shop squanders his dollar 

 upon a dozen trifles because the sense of selection 

 is paralysed. Likewise the young man, apprehend- 

 ing, through the clear lenses of a Jordan, the infi- 



