JANE LATHROP STANFORD 161 



As such, it was finally arranged that they receive a special allowance 

 from the estate. This allowance as household servants paid their sal- 

 aries, and a registration tax of twenty dollars per year on each student 

 had to cover all other expenses. But these two sources of income did 

 not come at once, and the great farms run as experiment stations were 

 centers of loss and not of income. 



A single incident will make this condition vivid. 



At one time in August, 1893, Mrs. Stanford received from Judge 

 Coffey's court the sum of $500 to be paid to her household servants. 

 It was paid in a bag of twenty-five twenty dollar gold pieces. Mrs. 

 Stanford called me in and said her household servants could wait; 

 there might be some professors in need, and I might divide the money 

 among them. I put the money under my pillow, and did not sleep 

 that night. Money was no common thing with us then. Next morn- 

 ing, on Sunday, I set out to give ten professors fifty dollars apiece. I 

 found not one who could give change for a twenty dollar gold piece, and 

 so I made it forty dollars and sixty dollars. 



The same afternoon after I had gone the rounds $13,000 was brought 

 down from the city for us other household servants. This sum was dis- 

 tributed, and then Mrs. Stanford sent word that as we had some money 

 now perhaps we could spare her the $500. I drew a check for the sum 

 against a long-vanished bank account, and covered the amount in the 

 morning with the aid of some of my associates. 



This incident again will explain why for six years the professors 

 were paid by personal checks of the president, and why these were not 

 always issued regularly, nor for the full amounts. We were all strug- 

 gling together to be able to issue them at all. There was no certainty 

 ahead of us. Most of the property was of such a character that it 

 could not be divided, but must go in blocks of millions, if it went at all, 

 and no one with millions at his disposal seemed inclined to invest it 

 anywhere. The estate held a one fourth interest in the Southern Pa- 

 cific System, and of all its many ramifications. Kept together, it could 

 maintain itself, but if any division were made the smaller part might be 

 subject to the process known as " freezing out." 



I pass by many minor incidents of struggle and economy. The 

 farms had to be abruptly closed, and then to be made to yield an in- 

 come. This required wise management and rigid economy at the same 

 time, but for all this Mrs. Stanford proved adequate. She learned her 

 lessons as she went along, and came to take a wholesome pleasure in 

 the Spartan simplicity of her life. If all else failed, there were the 

 jewels to fall back upon; and she steadily refused to consider the 

 advice (almost unanimous) of her counsel to close the university or 

 most of its departments until some more favorable time. In 1895 she 

 invited the pioneer class, then graduating, to a reception in her city 

 home, one reason being that it was the last class that could ever gradu- 



