White's 

 telegram 



The Days of a Man 1891 



no more insistent need than for men of thorough 

 training; and, finally, that the right method of 

 fostering higher education is for the people to build 

 and support their own universities. This doctrine 

 I had been preaching for seven years in Indiana. 

 While expounding it before the Illinois audience, I 

 was handed a telegram from Andrew D. White, 

 "Decline no offer from California till you hear from 

 me." 



Reaching Bloomington at five on Sunday morn- 

 ing, I met on the street one of our trustees, who said : 

 '* The Governor of California is over at the National 

 Hotel and wants to see you." It then appeared that 

 Senator and Mrs. Stanford had arrived in their 

 private car the day before, and were awaiting me 

 at the hotel. 



My first impressions of Leland Stanford were 

 Stanford extremely favorable, for even on such slight ac- 



and hi s . J ' 



errand quamtance he revealed an unusually attractive 

 personality. His errand he explained directly and 

 clearly. He hoped to develop in California a uni- 

 versity of the highest order, a center of invention 

 and research, where students should be trained for 

 "usefulness in life." His educational ideas, it ap- 

 peared, corresponded very closely with my own. 

 Indeed, from President White he had been assured 

 that I was the man to organize the institution he 

 contemplated. 1 



He then went on to explain that since the formal 

 founding of Leland Stanford Junior University in 

 1886, only buildings and land had been given, but 

 that practically all the joint property of himself 

 and wife, valued at more than $30,000,000, would 



1 See "Autobiography of Andrew D. White," Vol. II, page 447. 



354 II 



Leland 



