CHAPTER SIXTEEN 



I MUST now go back a little to catch up some loose 

 threads in my narrative that is, to speak of the 

 special facts instrumental in the foundation of the 

 university to which I had been called as head. 



In the year 1885 Senator Leland Stanford, a 

 former governor of California and one of the four 

 builders and owners of the Central Pacific and 

 Southern Pacific railways, made public his generous 

 plans for a new institution of the higher learning in 

 California. These had originated in the shadow of 

 a great sorrow. On March 13, 1884, his only child, 

 young Leland Stanford Junior, a lad of sixteen, died 

 in Florence of what was then called "Roman fever." 

 After a long and dreary night, the stricken father 

 awoke with these words on his lips: "The children 

 of California shall be my children." And from that 

 moment the question was simply as to what form 

 the noble service, transmuted out of pain, should 

 assume. 1 



For some time previous to his death young Leland 

 had been enthusiastically gathering objects of art 



1 In the fall of 1891 it was stated in certain quarters that Stanford Uni- 

 versity had been founded under spiritualistic influences, and a claim was put 

 forward in the name of Maud Lord Drake, a somewhat noted medium of the 

 time, that she had been the guiding intermediary. In 1892, therefore, Mr. 

 and Mrs. Stanford dictated to me the following statement for permanent 

 preservation: 



"Mr. Stanford made his will, looking to the endowment of the university, 

 in Paris, April 24, 1884. Mrs. Stanford made her will also, and copies were 

 sent to America. Mrs. Maud Lord Drake was unknown to them until they 

 met her at a seance with the Grants in October, 1884. At about that time 

 Mrs. Drake was detected in fraud." Mrs. Stanford further said: "No spirit- 



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