18933 Stanford 's Educational Philosophy 



tion, pure and simple, without hampering clauses. 

 His broad point of view was expressed as follows: 



We hope that this institution will endure through long 

 ages. Provisions regarding details of management, however 

 wise they may be at present, might prove to be mischievous 

 under conditions which may arise in the future. 



Of philosophical discussions, particularly as re- 

 lated to education, he was especially fond. In the 

 two years preceding his death we spent many eve- 

 nings discussing education in general and the Uni- 

 versity's relation to its students and to the public 

 at large. His educational ideals, largely drawn from 

 practical experience, were also in part a reflex of 

 the views of certain friends, especially Agassiz, 

 White, and Gilman. A conception of education as Training 

 "training for usefulness in life" was his central f r , 



. , TJ , . r | , usefulness 



idea. But to him usefulness meant not only mate- ,-/,/, 

 rial efficiency, but intellectual and spiritual help- 

 fulness also. On the influence of the teacher as a 

 moral force he laid great stress. His primary con- 

 cepts, with all of which I was in full sympathy, 

 involved individualism in education, early choice 

 of profession, and broad-based specialization along 

 some particular line. From Agassiz he had derived 

 a realizing sense of the impelling force of man's 

 intellectual needs "that hunger and thirst after 

 truth that only the destitute student knows." 



No profession of religious faith or belief shall be exacted of any one for any 

 purpose." 



Again, on October 3, 1902, in an address to the permanent board of trus- 

 tees that day organized, she further said: 



'Unless it maintains a strictly non-partisan attitude upon all political 

 questions, this institution with its large resources might well become a public 

 menace and forfeit all right to the special consideration it has received from 

 the hands of members of all parties." 



485 3 



