802 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 595. 



faculties. The donors furnist means of 

 propulsion, the experts within the pale lay 

 out the course and steer the vessel. You 

 all think of the names of Eliot, Gilman, 

 Hall and Harper as I utter these words — 

 I mention no name nearer home. 



This is founder's day here at Stanford 

 — the day set apart each year to quicken 

 and reanimate in all of us the conscious- 

 ness of the deeper significance of this little 

 university to which we permanently or tem- 

 porarily belong. I am asked to use my 

 voice to contribute to this effect. How 

 can I do so better than by uttering quite 

 simply and directly the impressions that 

 I personally receive? I am one among our 

 innumei'able American teachers, reared on 

 the Atlantic coast but admitted for this 

 year to be one of the family at Stanford. 

 I see things not wholly from without, as 

 the casual visitor does, but partly from 

 within. I am probably a typical observer. 

 As my impressions are, so will be the im- 

 pressions of others. And those impres- 

 sions, taken together, will probably be the 

 verdict of history on the institution which 

 Leland and Jane Stanford founded. 



"Where there is no vision, the people 

 perish." Mr. and Mrs. Stanford evidently 

 had a vision of the most prophetic sort. 

 They saw the opportunity for an absolutely 

 unique creation, they seized upon it with 

 the boldness of great minds; and the pas- 

 sionate energy with which Mrs. Stanford, 

 after her husband's death, drove the orig- 

 inal plans thi'ough in the face of every 

 dismaying obstacle, forms a chapter in the 

 biography of heroism. Heroic also the 

 loyalty with which in those dark years the 

 president and faculty made the laniver- 

 sity's cause their cause and shared the un- 

 certainties and privations. 



And what is the result to-day? To-day 

 the key-note is triumphantly struck. The 

 first step is made beyond recall. The 



character of the material foundation is 

 assured for all time as something unique 

 and unparalleled. It logically calls for 

 an equally unique and unparalleled spirit- 

 ual superstructure. 



Certainly the chief impression which the 

 existing university must make on every 

 visitor is of something unique and unparal- 

 leled. Its attributes are almost too fa- 

 miliar to you to bear recapitulation. The 

 classic scenery of its site,, reminding one 

 of Greece, Greek too in its atmosphere of 

 opalescent fire, as if the hills that close us 

 in were bathed in ether, milk and sunshine ; 

 the great city, near enough for convenience, 

 too far ever to become invasive; the cli- 

 mate, so friendly to work that every morn- 

 ing wakes one fresh for new amounts of 

 work; the noble architecture, so generously 

 planned that there is room and to spare 

 for every requirement; the democracy of 

 the life, no one superfluously rich, yet all 

 sharing, so far as their higher needs go, 

 in the common endowment — where could 

 a genius devoted to the search for truth, 

 and unworldly as most geniuses are, find 

 on the earth's whole round a place more 

 advantageous to come 'and work in ? Die 

 Luft der Freiheit weht! All the tradi- 

 tions are individualistic. Red tape and 

 organization are at their minimum. Inter- 

 ruptions and perturbing distractions hardly 

 exist. Eastern institutions look all dark 

 and huddled and confused in comparison 

 with this purity and serenity. Shall it 

 not be auspicious? Surely the one destiny 

 to which this happy beginning seems to 

 call Stanford is that it should become 

 something intense and original, not neces- 

 sarily in point of wealth or extent, but in 

 point of spiritual quality. The founders 

 have, as I said, triumphantly struck the 

 key-note, and laid the basis: the quality of 

 what they have already given is unique in 

 character. It rests with the officials of the 

 present and future Stanford, it rests with 



