158 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



twilight of gods in which the darkness shall fall on the world because 

 universities are no longer needed. The center of gravity of Stanford 

 University, of its student body, and of its influence on civilization, is 

 hundreds of years, thousands of years ahead. 



To the students of to-day, the professors of to-day, and the trustees 

 of to-day, the university to-day belongs, but not as a personal posses- 

 sion; only as a sacred trust. It is our first duty to see that its good 

 name and its good work are kept untarnished and unimpaired. It is for 

 the students to see that no custom of idleness or of dissipation, no fashion 

 of cynicism or of disloyalty ever becomes hardened into a tradition at 

 Stanford University. It is for the professors to strengthen them in 

 this decision, and to point out the best that men have ever thought or 

 done, to lead the way to gentle breeding and the enthusiasm of noble 

 thought. Now, as ever, " the university must welcome every ray of 

 varied genius to its hospitable halls," that their combined influences 

 may " set the heart of the youth in flame." It is for the Board of 

 Trustees and for the university executive to act as the balance wheel, 

 guarding jealously the funds of the institution, that the generous pres- 

 ent may not starve the future, and to see that no neglect or perversity of 

 student or teacher shall work any permanent harm to the university 

 whole. For the university must ever be infinitely greater than the sum 

 of all its parts. For its largest part is never present for our measure- 

 ment, and this part we can not measure is the sum of all its future in- 

 fluence. 



This university was founded on love in a sense which is true of no 

 other. Its corner-stone was love — love of a boy extended to the love 

 of the children of humanity. It was continued through love — the love 

 of a noble woman for her husband; the faith of both in love's ideals — 

 and as an embodiment of the power of love Stanford University stands 

 to-day. 



It is fitting that these statements should not stand as mere words. 

 I wish that in your hearts they may become realities. Not many of you 

 as students have seen Mrs. Stanford. The last of the freshmen classes 

 which she knew shall graduate as seniors a few weeks hence. None of 

 you have known Leland Stanford, broad-minded, stout-hearted, shrewd, 

 kindly, and full of hope, a man of action ripened into a philosopher. 

 Our university has now reached its eighteenth year. During the first 

 two years of its history, it was the hopeful experiment of Leland Stan- 

 ford. The next six years its story was that of the heart throbs of Jane 

 Lathrop Stanford, and the ten years following, with all their vicissi- 

 tudes, have been years of calmness and certainty, for the final outcome 

 is no longer open to question. 



It is my purpose this evening to tell a little of the story of the six 

 dark years, the years from eighteen ninety-three to eighteen ninety- 

 nine, those days in which the future of a university hung by a single 



