JANE LATHROP STANFORD 157 



JANE LATHEOP STANFOKD 

 A Eulogy 1 



By President DAVID STARR JORDAN 



STANFORD UNIVERSITY 



I AM to tell you to-day the story of a noble life, of one of the bravest, 

 wisest, most patient, most courageous and most devout of all the 

 women who have ever lived. I want to give to those of the university 

 to whom its founders are but a memory some lasting picture of the 

 woman who saved the university, which she and her honored husband 

 founded in faith and hope, and who thus made possible the education 

 you are receiving. I want to make my story as impersonal as I can, 

 as though I spoke not for myself but for all of you, men and women of 

 Stanford, with all gratitude towards the many who have helped in the 

 great work, and with all charity towards those whose interests or whose 

 conscientious convictions ranged them on the other side. If I am suc- 

 cessful, you will see more clearly than ever before the lone, sad figure of 

 the mother of the university, strong in her trust in God and in her 

 loyalty to her husband's purposes, happy only in the belief that in 

 carrying out her husband's plans for training the youth of California 

 in virtue and usefulness she was acting the part to which she was as- 

 signed. 



We have often said that Stanford University belongs to the Stan- 

 ford students. It was the free gift of the founders, man and woman 

 that were, to the students, the men and women that were to be. It is 

 your university, yours and yours only, as once it was theirs. 



But we must not interpret this gift too narrowly. It is not yours, 

 you students of to-day, to have or to hold in any exclusive way. The 

 university belongs to all the students, those who have been here, some 

 ten thousand in all, those who are here to-day, seventeen hundred more 

 or less, and those who are to come. Before these we count as nothing, for 

 the students to come will number for each century about a hundred 

 thousand. And there are many of these centuries, for the world is still 

 very young, and a university once firmly rooted is as nearly eternal as 

 human civilization itself can be. The university stands for the highest 

 thought and wisest action possible for man, and the need of a univer- 

 sity must endure so long as man exists ; and that will be for a very long 

 time. Man is bounded by the limits of space, but the race once estab- 

 lished on this planet of ours, we see no limit of time, no prospect of a 



1 Founder's Day address at Stanford University, March 9, 1909. 



