Stanford University - the First Twenty Five Years 1891-1925

STANFORD UNIVERSITY THE FIRST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS by ORRIN LESLIE ELLIOTT Registrar of the University 1891-1925. FOREWORD: Biographies are intriguing human documents. We like to have the record tell us o a great mans ancestors, his old home, his childhood, and then his career. Universities are living units. To have one born in our midst and to watch its struggles and its growth and career has been the opportunity of the passing gen eration. Stanford University has spent its life in the open, under public and private inspection. Nearly everyone knows some things about it that are true and a good deal that is not. Dr. Orrin Leslie Elliott came to Stanford when it started its educational work. He has lived with it ever since, and knows all about its first faltering steps, its childhood diseases and acci dents, and the background of its astounding growth and success. He has written the story for us as a labor of love and with that keen sense of values that makes a true historian. As a story, regardless of the persons involved, it is a ro mance of our Western civilization that carries its own interest in every chapter. What he has written will help us all to under stand Stanford better and to know about universities. As the outstanding hope o the human family we need to know as much as we can in order to do our share in keeping our univer sities alive and growing, and in providing through them a free zone for the fullest possible blooming of the human intellect and spirit. RAY LYMAN WILBUR. AUTHORS PREFACE: Although Stanford University has now entered upon its forty-sixth year, this book properly comes to an end with the completion of the first quarter-century of its existence. These twenty-five years, covering the presidencies of Dr. Jordan and Dr. Branner, bring to a close what may not inappropriately be termed the heroic age of the University whose course of de velopment and significant events are now far enough in the past to be seen in fair perspective. Among the characteristics which an intimate history, such as is here attempted, should be expected to bring into relief are the following The farsighted, unselfish, and nobly generous purpose of Mr. and Mrs. Stanford in the creation of a memorial foundation devoted singly to the public good the inspiring personality and daring leadership of Dr. Jordan in realizing the educational opportunities of the Found ers design and in guiding the destinies of the University through dark days and bright the courage and steadfastness of Mrs. Stanford in very trying times and circumstances the day by-day problems and the larger crises in the onflowing life of the University above all, the Stanford loyalties and the light heartedness and joyousness which characterized the life of the community, students and faculty, whatever the day might bring forth, Stanford men and women who have lived through some or all of these early years will not fail to recall countless instances which confirm, or interpret, or supplement what is here recorded. And to Stanford folk of all times may there not come a deeper realization of the price that was paid for the great inheritance which is theirs...