1 72 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



need the president's support and his helpfulness in this work as far as he can 

 support me. There are plenty who are interested in the affairs of the estate 

 with me, but few in the university. 



In July, 1898, she said : 



If I am able to keep the university in the condition it is now, I shall be 

 more than thankful. $15,000 a month is a great expenditure, and exhausts my 

 ingenuity and resources to such an extent that had I not the university so close 

 to my heart I would relieve myself of this enormous burden and take rest and 

 recreation for the next year. But I prefer to see the good work going on in 

 its present condition, and I am not promising myself anything further for the 

 future until the skies are brighter than they are now. 



On December 14, 1900, she repeats: 



I could lay down my life for the university. Not for any pride in its 

 perpetuating the names of our dear son and ourselves, its founders, but for 

 the sincere hope I cherish in its sending forth to the world grand men and 

 women who will aid in developing the best there is to be found in human nature. 



These extracts, largely from business letters, will show better than 

 any words of mine her spirit and her faith. These must justify and 

 make live the words I used on February 28, 1905, the date of Mrs. 

 Stanford's sudden death in Honolulu. 



The sudden death of Mrs. Stanford has come as a great shock to all of us. 

 She has been so brave and strong that we hoped for her return well rested, and 

 that her last look on earth might be on her beloved Palo Alto. But it was a 

 joy to her to have been spared so long; to have lived to see the work of her 

 husband's life and hers firmly and fully established. 



Hers has been a life of the most perfect devotion both to her own and her 

 husband's ideals. If in the years we knew her she ever had a selfish feeling, no 

 one ever detected it. All her thoughts were of the university and of the way 

 to make it effective for wisdom and righteousness. 



No one outside of the university can understand the difficulties in her way 

 in the final establishment of the university, and her patient deeds of self- 

 sacrifice can be known only to those who saw them from day to day. Some day 

 the world may understand a part of this. It will then know her for the wisest, 

 as well as the most generous, friend of learning in our time. It will know her 

 as the most loyal and most devoted of wives. What she did was always the 

 best she could do. Wise, devoted, steadfast, prudent, patient and just — every 

 good word we can use was hers by right. The men and women of the university 

 feel the loss not alone of the most generous of helpers, but of the nearest of 

 friends. 



To these words spoken when the shock of the death of the mother 

 of the university first came to her children, I added later a single 

 thought as to Mrs. Stanford's conception of the future development of 

 the university. 



It should be above all other things, sound and good, using its forces not 

 for mental development alone, but for physical, moral and spiritual growth and 

 strength. It should make not only scholars, but men and women, alert, fearless, 

 wise. God-fearing, skilled in " team work " and eager to " get into the game," 

 whatever the struggle into which they may be thrown. To this end she would 



