1890 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 Ellwtt 

 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 Guiding 

 experience, if not in the history of American edu- 

 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 



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