764 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 936 



Francisco will be here to see that all its 

 needs are met. 



It has already on this initial day a li- 

 brary of nearly 40,000 volumes, all relating 

 to medical practise and medical research, 

 a good number of books, as you will see 

 when you compare it with other libraries 

 devoted elsewhere to the same subject. 



The importance to San Francisco of such 

 a collection of medical books kept up-to- 

 date by a steady inflow of the best journals 

 and monographs is obvious. The library 

 is the natural center for creative effort and 

 hence for all research, since there is no loss 

 of energy so needless as is the doing again 

 that which has been well done before. All 

 new work must be based upon knowledge 

 that has gone before. The breath of life 

 of all research is the joy of seeking for the 

 unknown. Chance discoveries of great 

 moment in medicine are no longer to be 

 made at random. Piece by piece must new 

 truths be found and correlated. Each in- 

 vestigator must rest his work upon that of 

 others. He must stand on the shoulders of 

 the past if he is to look into the future. To 

 know what has gone before is only possible 

 where accumulated records are at hand. 

 In the library which we dedicate to-day is 

 massed the product of thousands of minds, 

 some great and far-seeing, some small but 

 earnest, but all seeking after truth. The 

 great function of such a library as this is 

 to accumulate and classify and make ready 

 of access the knowledge that the world has 

 already gained and to keep abreast with 

 the steady current of advancing medical 

 science, choosing from it all that seems 

 likely to be worth while. Such a function 

 is a difficult and responsible one and one 

 that will be performed in fuller and fuller 

 measure by this library as it meets more 

 and more with the support of the great 

 state in which it is located. Indeed its in- 

 terest should extend far beyond the con- 



fines of any one city or state, for no such 

 collection of medical books is to be found 

 elsewhere on this continent west of the 

 Mississippi nor along the shores of our 

 great ocean so soon to be expanded by the 

 Panama Canal; itself a product of human 

 skill that has been made possible by the ad- 

 vance of the science of medicine. 



The Stanford Medical Department with 

 its medical building, including Lane Hall, 

 its Lane Hospital and its Lane Library, are, 

 as you have already heard from my col- 

 league. Dr. Rixford, the gift of the eminent 

 surgeon, Levi Cooper Lane and of the fac- 

 ulty of Cooper Medical College. Dr. Lane 

 first established the Cooper Medical Col- 

 lege, named by him for his uncle Dr. Elias 

 Cooper. But as the future of medical in- 

 struction must lie with the universities, 

 and as sound medical instruction must rest 

 on university courses in physiology, chem- 

 istry, biology and physics, Dr. Lane made 

 arrangements whereby the board of direct- 

 ors of Cooper Medical College were able 

 to deed this property to Stanford Univer- 

 sity on the sole condition that the univer- 

 sity should use the gift of money and build- 

 ings for medical instruction. The corpora- 

 tion of the Cooper Medical College has dis- 

 solved itself, patriotically turning over its 

 good-will and all its properties, hopes and 

 achievements to the larger institution, and 

 Stanford University has loyally accepted 

 the trust and is doing the best work it 

 knows how to do in the line of the accept- 

 ance of these pledges. 



The function of the privately endowed 

 universitj', as the authorities of Stanford 

 understand it, is to set standards in educa- 

 tion and to uphold these standards. It 

 must set standards in service to society as 

 well as within its own classrooms. 



In whatever way a school of medicine 

 can help the people it is its duty to render 

 aid. The hospital is the laboratory of clin- 



