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 ADDRESSES AT THE FOURTH ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT 
 
 LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY 
 
 MAY 29, 1895 
 
 SPECIALIZATION IN EDUCATION 
 
 John Maxson Stillman 
 Professor of Chemistry, Leland Stanford Junior University 
 
 ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATES 
 
 David Starr Jordan 
 
 President, Leland Stanford Junior University 
 
 PAI.O ALTO, CALIFORNIA 
 
 STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 1895
 
 ADDRESSES AT THE FOURTH ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT 
 
 LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY 
 
 MAY 2i). 1895 
 
 SPECIALIZATION IN EDUCATION 
 
 John Maxson Stillman 
 Professor of Chemistry, Leland Stanford Junior University 
 
 ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATES 
 
 David Starr Jordan 
 President, Leland Stanford Junior University 
 
 PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA 
 
 STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 1895
 
 <yo 
 
 SPECIALIZATION IN EDUCATION. 
 
 John Maxson Stillman. 
 
 Education, in the somewhat restricted sense in which we 
 commonly use the term, is the systematic effort to econo- 
 mize and to augment the mental and moral development of 
 the individual. It attempts to equip him at the least pos- 
 sible cost of time and waste of energy, with the most impor- 
 tant results of the accumulated thought and experience of 
 mankind. Its highest aim is the fitting of the individual 
 to be of the greatest possible service to the race. In general 
 it is also true that the man fitted to be of greatest service to 
 the race, is also best fitted to improve his own condition, 
 and to increase his own comfort and happiness. A system 
 of education which should ignore the first and greater 
 object would contain the seed of its own dissolution, for in 
 the long run society is banded together against organized 
 selfishness. 
 
 In former ages, systematic education was designed only 
 for the priesthood. Later it became also a preparation for 
 the other so-called learned professions — law and medicine 
 ™- and a distinguishing badge, an accomplishment, a lux- 
 ury for the sons of gentlemen. The " educated classes " 
 formed a caste, and often a narrow and a jealous caste. 
 The increase and wider distribution of wealth and the in- 
 creasing demands of a progressive civilization, have tended 
 to break down the barriers hedging an educated caste. Step 
 by step the conviction has gained ground that education is 
 the right of the many, rather than the privilege of the few. 
 
 295512
 
 4 Specialization in Education. 
 
 Gradually society is becoming convinced that universal 
 education, and a generous education, is one of the few good 
 things of which there can not be too much, and the best 
 paying investment for her security and prosperity. The 
 immense sums expended from the public treasury, or 
 through private munificence, for educational purposes, are 
 capital which society has invested not for individual benefit 
 at the expense of others, but for her own best interests, and 
 we may depend upon it that in the end she will see to it 
 that she receives the full interest due, in terms of honest 
 and efficient service rendered to the material development 
 or the social welfare of humanity. 
 
 It is evident that the methods and materials of education 
 must vary with the needs of the time and the ever-changing 
 conditions of civilization. The best education that could be 
 devised in the seventeenth century differs from the best 
 that the nineteenth has developed, and the twentieth cen- 
 tury will bring new requirements. To a certain extent the 
 education of today is the outgrowth from past conditions 
 and past needs. On the other hand, the best education of 
 today is the result of a more or less successful effort to fore- 
 cast the conditions and requirements of the future. It can 
 not be otherwise. The youth now receiving instruction in 
 thousands of class-rooms in the United States are prepar- 
 ing for a life-work in the future, and, in so far as may be, 
 their training has been shaped to meet the probable condi- 
 tions of their social environment. From a study of the his- 
 tory of the past and the conditions of the present we en- 
 deavor to discover tendencies of human thought and action 
 which will be influential in determining the conditions of 
 the future. The more clearly these tendencies can be dis- 
 cerned the more successfully may be laid the foundation of 
 future usefulness. The earnest teacher has faith in a pro- 
 gressive development of human society, however slow it 
 may be, and also in the possibility through education of 
 influencing this development. If he has not this faith, 
 there is lacking an important source of inspiration.
 
 Specialization in Education. 5 
 
 The problems, then, that face advanced educators today are 
 commensurate in their importance with the problems which 
 already confront our civilization, or which more or less 
 distinctly are discerned through the mists which veil the 
 future. 
 
 The century now nearing its close has been a period of 
 unexampled material and industrial progress, and I believe 
 also of social and political improvement as well. Though 
 we are confronted with wholesale corruption, rascality, and 
 crime, it is yet reassuring to remember that they are gener- 
 ally and clearly recognized to be corruption, rascality, and 
 crime, and not called honesty, rectitude, and beneficence, 
 even by the most corrupt exponents of public opinion. 
 
 Many causes have conspired to make the past century 
 thus remarkable in its development : rapid methods of 
 transit, rapid and cheap intercommunication of ideas, rail- 
 roads, steamships, telegraph — but more than all. the in- 
 crease of education and the consequent emancipation of 
 thought from the thraldom of old philosophies and dead 
 dogmas. 
 
 The impulse arising from the study of natural and phys- 
 ical science has played no small part in this stimulation of 
 latent human possibilities. Naturally there have arisen 
 from the changing conditions of life new social, political, 
 and industrial problems, making necessary a more varied 
 and different educational preparation. The great variety of 
 schools for general and special training, and the diversity 
 of ideas as to function and methods of education, are evi- 
 dence of the attempt to suit educational methods to the 
 various needs of the time. 
 
 The century soon to be ushered in will doubtless carry 
 forward, perhaps still more rapidly, the industrial and ma- 
 terial development of civilization. Its achievements may 
 be greater than those of the nineteenth ; but it would be 
 strange if the future century were not beset with difficulties 
 and dangers commensurate with the magnificence of its 
 promise in other directions.
 
 6 Specialization in Education. 
 
 I am no pessimist. I do not believe the golden age of 
 humanity is past, that society is going from bad to worse, 
 and social anarchy hovers over us, sometime to engulf the 
 dissipated remains of civilization. Nor, on the other hand, 
 am I ready to accept that now at last we stand on the 
 shores of Utopia, and that the troubled ages of war, social 
 tyranny, and enthroned selfishness are about to give place 
 to that era longed for by poets of all ages — 
 
 " When the war-drum throbs no longer 
 And the battle-flags are furled 
 In the parliament of man, the federation of the world." 
 
 Yet, slowly or rapidly, with perhaps many a pendulum 
 swing of progression and retrogression, we must and do 
 look forward to a gradual improvement in social condi- 
 tions, in political wisdom, in honesty, and in love for one's 
 fellowmen. And it is to education that we must look to 
 make the world of a hundred years hence a little better on 
 the average than as we know it today. The problems which 
 are to confront the future generations, more numerous and 
 more difficult, as the conditions of life become more com- 
 plex, must be met by a more general education of the people, 
 and by education better adapted to the needs of the social 
 organism. Problems already face us which tax to the 
 utmost the knowledge and ability of the best trained ex- 
 perts — problems affecting the mutual relations between 
 nations, international law, international commerce, or 
 finance ; equally difficult questions of internal administra- 
 tion — currency, tariff, taxation ; the relation of the gov- 
 ernment to the individual ; charities and correction — they 
 need not be further enumerated, we all recognize them. 
 Many social questions once simple and easily regulated be- 
 come more difficult and of greater import through the 
 growing complexity of the social machinery. Thus the 
 centralization of capital into mammoth corporations or 
 trusts, with the power that springs from a more than kingly
 
 Specialization in Education. 7 
 
 wealth, has given rise to questions of great public impor- 
 tance — questions which troubled but little when competi- 
 tion was freer and the relations of supply and demand less 
 restricted. The State has found itself compelled to inter- 
 fere to protect the public from the abuse of power by- 
 wealthy corporations, and perhaps no task before us is of 
 greater importance than that of protecting the public from 
 such organizations, and at the same time protecting great 
 business enterprises from an equally unjust and tyrannous 
 abuse of the power of legislation. Concentration of capital 
 has made possible organization of labor for its own protec- 
 tion, and here again a giant strength is aroused which pub- 
 lic policy must control, that it be not used against the 
 rights of others, nor the welfare of the State. 
 
 The problems of civilization are becoming more intricate 
 with the discover}' of new fields of human activity, with 
 the increasing development of older professions and indus- 
 tries, and with more intimate international relations, com- 
 mercial, financial, and political. Every department of 
 human thought and activity feels the impulse of this in- 
 creasing complexity, and demands in consequence more 
 thorough knowledge and greater skill to deal with the 
 changing conditions. 
 
 How are we to acquire the wisdom and ability to deal 
 with such questions on the basis of equity and honesty and 
 with intelligent understanding of the factors involved in 
 their settlement ? Only, I am convinced, by the gradual 
 elevation of the people to a higher average of honesty and 
 intelligence, and further than that by the thorough special 
 education of a larger number of men to act as leaders of 
 public opinion in their respective branches of knowledge. 
 The greater the number of such leaders, the more thorough 
 their training, and the more varied the lines of thought in 
 which such leaders exist, the more rapid and free from 
 danger will be the march of progress. When knowledge, 
 skill, and integrity take the lead, and public opinion is in- 
 telligent enough to discriminate between the voice of wis-
 
 8 Specialization in Education. 
 
 dom and the flattery and sophistry of the demagogue, then 
 only may we look for the realization of a reasonable Utopia. 
 Far from that goal as we now are, it is nevertheless the part 
 of practical patriotism and humanity to strive ever toward 
 it, that we may avoid to the greatest extent possible the 
 wrong solutions of those ever-recurring problems of society 
 — ever-recurring because, as has been well said, if a ques- 
 tion be not rightly settled it always comes up again for 
 settlement. 
 
 Two hundred years ago any man of ability and of good 
 schooling for the time might readily have mastered all that 
 was then known about steam engineering. Any statesman 
 of the time of Queen Elizabeth might easily have learned 
 all that existed of international law. How much greater 
 the preparation now required to master those branches ! 
 A similar increase in subject matter and in complexity of 
 relations, and a corresponding need of more special and 
 more thorough training, may be found in all the sciences 
 and their applications, in mercantile and manufacturing 
 business, law, medicine, statecraft, literature, or philosophy. 
 Where a hundred years ago a fairly good preparatory edu- 
 cation and some natural adaptability to the subject formed 
 sufficient foundation to enable a man to earn a front rank 
 in his profession, today the man without thorough special 
 training finds himself forced to take a subordinate rank. 
 There is an increasing tendency to subdivide the profes- 
 sions and occupations, once practiced as a whole — or, as 
 we say, to specialize. The lawyer takes up the practice of 
 corporation law, patent law, commercial law, and so on ; 
 the physician chooses some subdivision of medicine or 
 surgery ; the engineering profession shows the same tend- 
 ency. 
 
 This tendency toward specialization is a practical recog- 
 nition of the importance of more thorough knowledge and 
 of the increasing labor or difficulty of obtaining sufficient 
 preparation for satisfactory work in all branches of a given 
 profession.
 
 Specialization in Education. y 
 
 Modern education must take cognizance of this great 
 diversity of work in life, and of the greater need of training 
 adapted to these diverse objects. In all departments of 
 human activity where brain is more essential to success 
 than muscle ( and where is it not ? ) the increasing differ- 
 entiation of civilization is making more and more exacting 
 and more difficult the determining of what kind of educa- 
 tion is adapted to produce the most effective preparation. 
 It becomes evident that we must devote more years to this 
 preparation, or there must be found some way to employ 
 the present average student period to better advantage. 
 
 On the other hand, we must face the fact that the aver- 
 age length of human life is not increasing ; nor does the 
 inherited capacity for education in the human race increase 
 in proportion to the growth of civilization. As another has 
 said, the evolution of civilization is more rapid than that 
 of the race. It does not seem probable that the time de- 
 voted to schooling in lower and higher institutions can be 
 on the average lengthened much beyond the present limits. 
 Eventually a standing army of students is cheaper to 
 maintain than a standing army of soldiers, as the world 
 will sooner or later realize. But any standing army of 
 non-producers operates as a heavy tax on the community, 
 and this fact will militate against any material extension 
 of that part of life devoted to study by the ever-increasing 
 army of students attending the higher schools of all kinds, 
 professional, technical, or general. 
 
 It is then necessary, if education is to keep pace with the 
 march of civilization, that, by constantly improving meth- 
 ods and plans of instruction, we shall learn better to econ- 
 omize the student's time, more thoroughly to marshal his 
 capabilities toward some worthy aim, more effectively to 
 render active his potential energy. For whenever society 
 has invested the time and the productive energy of the 
 student she will demand her reward in the assurance that 
 the recipient of her bounty shall ultimately render a ser- 
 vice adequate to the time and cost of education. In no
 
 10 Specialization in Education. 
 
 other way can such service be rendered than for the stu- 
 dent to so utilize his years of preparation that he shall be 
 able and willing to use his powers and faculties for the 
 greatest possible good of society. To faithfully discharge 
 this obligation he must prepare himself to take as high a 
 place of usefulness as his native ability and his opportuni- 
 ties render possible. That man or woman who accom- 
 plishes less of good or useful work than is possible to his or 
 her ability and opportunities is to that extent committing 
 a sin against society. 
 
 To further such an aim, the student must bend his ener- 
 gies toward preparing himself to do in some useful line of 
 activity the best that in him lies. To meet the increasing 
 differentiation of life, specialization in education is neces- 
 sary ; and to achieve a maximum of efficiency for the indi- 
 vidual there must be an early adaptation of plan and of 
 methods to the end to be attained. The greatest possible 
 service to the best interests of humanity is the ultimate 
 goal of all education, and to him who brings to the cause of 
 human progress full-hearted and efficient service, will be 
 made liberal return in gifts of wealth, of fame, of respect, 
 or of love, according to the degree or the aim of such serv- 
 ice. 
 
 I should perhaps state more explicitly what I mean by 
 specialization in education. I understand by that phrase, 
 devoting the necessary portion of the student's allotted 
 time in the University in such a way as will enable him to 
 become to some extent identified with some branch of knowl- 
 edge or some field of human thought. This object implies 
 the laying of a thorough foundation in all branches of 
 knowledge clearly related to the chosen specialty, and the 
 cultivation of all those faculties and powers necessary to its 
 successful prosecution. It also implies the study of the 
 specialty itself to the extent of acquiring a certain measure 
 of familiarity with its methods, and some degree of master- 
 ship. By mastership I do not mean the complete familiar- 
 ity which can only result from a life-time of labor in the
 
 Specialization in Education. 11 
 
 chosen field. A specialty pursued to the extent possihle 
 during the time available to most students must indeed 
 leave the earnest student with a keen sense of the narrow 
 limits of his knowledge. Nevertheless, rightly pursued, it 
 should at least impart to him a feeling of confidence as to 
 his power to carry forward in a worthy and intelligent 
 manner the work thus well begun. 
 
 After all, it is this sense of power, this confidence in one's 
 ability to keep growing in power, this consciousness that in 
 some line of thought the mind is out of leading strings, 
 that is one of the greatest incentives to a high range of life- 
 work ; and it is the lack of this confidence that often bars 
 the way to the greatest usefulness, and that causes so many 
 men to fail in utilizing the advantages of education, falling 
 back into stations which require little or no special prepa- 
 ration. 
 
 Knowledge is indeed power — not, however, the superfic- 
 ial knowledge of a multitude of things, but the thorough 
 knowledge of some useful thing. A general knowledge of 
 many things adds to the pleasure of living ; it is a source 
 of profit and enjoyment to ourselves and to our friends ; it 
 enables us better to understand the interests and to sympa- 
 thize with the aspirations of our neighbors. It assists us 
 to judge wisety concerning many things conducive to the 
 right conduct of life ; it helps to make the good citizen and 
 the good man. But it will not replace the ability to do 
 something or other better than most of our neighbors, some- 
 thing for which we have been more thoroughly educated 
 than they. Not every man can achieve greatness in his 
 special line of work ; not every man can be a Darwin, an 
 Agassiz, a Helmholtz, or an Emerson ; but every man of 
 fair ability and industry may so utilize his opportunities 
 that he may do serviceable work in the line he chooses for 
 his own. 
 
 It is no longer practicable to leave specialization till the 
 student days are over. The differentiation of occupation 
 and the accumulated mass of special knowledge necessary
 
 12 Specialization in Education. 
 
 to success is too great. The beginning of specialization 
 must be made under the direction of those competent to 
 instruct and whose occupation it is to impart their knowl- 
 edge. Nor should the benefit arising from specialization 
 be confined to the fortunate few who can afford to prolong 
 their University work beyond the average four years, though 
 these will indeed usually reap more than proportionate 
 advantage. It is better to make some sacrifice of general 
 studies rather than to deprive the many of the benefits that 
 arise from thus focusing their energies on some congenial 
 subject, to the end that they may acquire therein some con- 
 fidence in their knowledge and their power. 
 
 The danger that lies near specialization in the University 
 is that which arises from an education too narrow and one- 
 sided. We frequently hear of the evils of over-specializa- 
 tion, and of a class of narrow and unpractical specialists. 
 It is beyond question true that a narrow specialization, 
 begun prematurely and resting on too inadequate a founda- 
 tion, will to a great extent defeat its own objects. Even if 
 the student should under some circumstances achieve a fair 
 measure of success in his specialty, he may be too narrow 
 in his views and out of touch with the progress of society — 
 particularly if he be by nature a man of narrow mind. 
 But, even so, which of the two extreme types is worse : the 
 man of narrow training, lacking in the usual characteris- 
 tics of the guild of scholars, out of touch perhaps with the 
 common thought of the leaders of humanity, but capable of 
 doing useful work in his special field of labor ; or the 
 highly cultured and accomplished college graduate with a 
 smattering of twenty -ologies and -isms, but with not enough 
 useful knowledge of anything to enable him to find a place 
 in the world's work — a drone in the social hive ? I ques- 
 tion if there exists a more essentially narrow man than this 
 latter type of educated man — - for he can never see beyond 
 the horizon of his own shallow experience, and from his 
 self-constructed throne he judges the rest of mankind with 
 the complacent assurance born of a fancied superiority.
 
 Specialization in Education. 13 
 
 We must discriminate with care between the ideas of over- 
 specialization and of premature or unwise specialization. 
 I do not know that over-specialization is possible if the 
 subject be a useful one and the preparation for it suffici- 
 ently broad and thorough. The higher we build the pin- 
 nacles of special knowledge the broader and deeper must 
 be the foundation that supports them, and the more care- 
 fully must it be adapted to its purpose. Too limited a dif- 
 ferentiation is unwise, also, if the subject matter is not of 
 importance commensurate with the time and labor bestowed 
 upon it. The University must not admit to the dignity of 
 specialties subjects of trivial importance, or which do not 
 demand for their preparation work of University grade. It 
 must also insist that the preparation for special studies be 
 sufficiently broad and fundamental. If these conditions be 
 observed, there need be no fear of the danger of over-gpec- 
 ialization. Nor, on the other hand, does specialization 
 rightly considered tend to exclude from education all those 
 influences which go to make the gentleman and the scholar. 
 It merely provides throughout the college course of the stu- 
 dent that " one increasing purpose runs." 
 
 The study of any worth}' subject as a specialty, be it his- 
 tory, physics, law, biology, engineering, or philology, if it 
 be prosecuted with the proper spirit and with due reference 
 to all that is demanded for a thorough mastery of the sci- 
 ence, may contain within it the germs of all that is essen- 
 tial to the world's best citizen, and as to the efficiency of 
 such an education neither the rostrum, the salon, nor the 
 club furnishes the criterion. It is not the curriculum of 
 the University that determines the value of the education 
 so much as it is the adaptability of the work to the individ- 
 ual, the spirit of the student, his zeal, his application, and 
 the thoroughness of his accomplishment. There are many 
 studies that are useful in cultivating that breadth of sym- 
 pathy and of understanding which we call culture, but no 
 one study is essential. Even the correct use of one's native 
 language is no absolute essential, valuable and important
 
 14 Specialization in Education. 
 
 though it he. Particular studies have no abstract educa- 
 tional value ; they are only useful as they find something 
 responsive in the mind of the student. One man finds 
 through the study of history the great lessons of humanity, 
 and bends his life to fulfill the laws of social evolution as 
 they reveal themselves to his mind. Another learns the 
 love of truth and the reverence for law through the study 
 of the forces of nature. 
 
 I doubt if there is any one thing in the consideration of 
 higher education more important for its future develop- 
 ment than that a man's education must be more carefully 
 adapted to the structure of his mind than is his clothing to 
 his body. Specialization in education with a variation cor- 
 responding to the differentiation of modern civilization 
 necessarity implies an elasticity suited to the mental capa- 
 bilities and inclination of the student. It is more difficult 
 to change the inherited and acquired mental constitution 
 than it is to change the inherited and acquired physical 
 characteristics. As we have not yet the means of measur- 
 ing the mind of a man as the tailor measures his body, we 
 must be guided largely by his own tastes or the evidence he 
 gives of ability in one line or another. Education can but 
 develop existent faculties and furnish the tools for their 
 exercise. It can not create mental faculties ; it can only 
 enable the man, by the wise direction of his energies, to 
 make the best use of those powers he possesses. 
 
 In presenting this plea for more specialization than is 
 recognized in the curricula of most American Universities 
 I desire not to be misunderstood. I believe that every man 
 and woman should receive the most complete education 
 that circumstances will permit. No one can know too 
 much nor know too thoroughly whatever of good and useful 
 there is to know. No capital of money or of time is better 
 invested for one's own welfare or for the good of one's fel- 
 lows than that invested in education. The broader the 
 foundation and the more varied the mental training the 
 greater are the potentialities for future usefulness. Nor
 
 Specialization in Education. 15 
 
 can any man foresee what destiny lias in store, nor be sure 
 that the vocation he aspires to in youth will be the occupa- 
 tion of his manhood's years. He is wise who plants many 
 kinds of seed to provide harvests of satisfaction for future 
 years. In variety of knowledge and of interests are the 
 germs of nobler pleasures and greater usefulness. Only 
 when a large number of men and women are educated to a 
 position of intelligent appreciation of the needs of society, 
 and to an unselfish aspiration for the common welfare, can 
 the wisest leaders of thought and action exert their due 
 influence. For ; as educated men and women, as has been 
 
 said, 
 
 "We are pledged 
 To understand, to live the truth we know, 
 And help men so to live and understand." 
 
 Recognizing clearly these great aims and responsibilities 
 of higher education, and desiring to see them fulfilled to 
 the utmost, I yet believe that as there is no particular cur- 
 riculum essential to these aims it is possible for the student 
 to select a course of study which, while it shall furnish all 
 the essentials of a liberal education, may nevertheless bear 
 a clear relation to his special line of work ; and also that 
 this ideal course must be as varied in detail as are the 
 minds of men and the avocations of educated men. To the 
 end that general training be not sacrificed to the need of 
 specialization, and that time may be found for more effect- 
 ive work in the specialt} 7 without prolonging the average 
 period of study, the work of the lower or preparatory schools 
 must be made more thorough and effective. There should 
 be fewer mechanical methods, and more attention to indi- 
 vidual capacity and adaptability. The subjects taught 
 need not be many, but they should be fundamental in their 
 departments : language, literature, history, mathematics, 
 natural or physical science. They should be taught in 
 such a way as to hold the attention and to develop to the 
 greatest possible degree the powers of observation, reason- 
 ing, and reflection. For this more teachers and better teach-
 
 16 Specialization in Education. 
 
 ers will be needed — and this applies to schools of grammar 
 and primary grade to an even greater degree than to high 
 schools. These improvements are certain to come, for we 
 are but just beginning to realize that money spent in 
 education is, even from a pecuniary standpoint, a paying 
 investment for society. More money is wasted in every 
 civilized country from lack of knowledge than would many 
 times pay for the cost of proper education — could we but 
 discover the proper education. Every improvement in edu- 
 cational methods necessitates improvements in all depart- 
 ments of education. Each new higher school or university 
 is born to new responsibilities, every succeeding generation 
 of students to a richer educational birthright ; and that 
 institution which fails to meet its responsibilities or mis- 
 interprets the direction in which lies true development will 
 sooner or later experience the inexorableness of the law of 
 human progress. 
 
 " It seeth everywhere and marketh all: 
 Do right — it recompenseth ! do one wrong — 
 The equal retribution must be made, 
 Though Dhakma tarry long. 
 
 " It knows not wrath nor pardon; utter-true 
 Its measures mete, its faultless balance weighs ; 
 Times are as nought: tomorrow it will judge, 
 Or after many days." 
 
 Finally, let us keep in view that whatever be the extent 
 or kind of training which in any given case or under any 
 given circumstances it is practicable to impart, it is above 
 all important to inculcate the spirit of earnest endeavor, 
 the love of truth, and reverence for the laws which underlie 
 alike the forces of nature and of human life. Let us realize 
 also the value of opportunities and leisure for quiet reflec- 
 tion, for unhurried thinking — times of respite from the 
 rush and whirl of that mighty torrent of modern activity 
 which threatens to sweep us away like bubbles on its sur- 
 face. We can not attempt to know all things ; it becomes 
 us therefore to confine our attention and to concentrate our
 
 Specialization in Education. 17 
 
 energies upon fewer things, that opportunity may yet re- 
 main for such mental leisure, with its blessed train of 
 elevating influences, to steal upon the mind, sweetening it 
 with the promise of a golden age to come, when intelli- 
 gence, integrity, and morality shall rule the earth. 
 
 As was written thirty years ago by our California poet, 
 
 Sill: 
 
 Haste ! haste ! O laggard, leave thy drowsy dreamB ! 
 Cram all thy brain with knowledge; clutch and cram! 
 The earth is wide, the universe is vast — 
 Thou hast infinity to learn — haste ! 
 
 Haste not, haste not, my soul. Infinity? 
 Thou hast eternity to learn it in. 
 Thy boundless lesson through the endless years 
 Hath boundless leisure. Run not like a slave — 
 Sit like a king, and see the ranks of worlds 
 Wheel in their cycles onward to thy feet.
 
 ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATES. 
 
 David Starr Jordan. 
 
 To the Class of '95 — 
 
 Today we give you the last of your childhood's toys, the 
 college degree. The degree, with all its titles and its privi- 
 leges, is yours. But it will not help you much in life. It 
 belongs to the babyhood of culture. It represents hopes 
 and ideals, the promise of youth — but men and women 
 are judged by achievements, not by dreams. You will 
 value your diploma for the growth to which it bears wit- 
 ness. For the warm friendships and sweet associations you 
 will value it again. And still you will prize it as a card 
 of admission to the noblest body of men and women in the 
 world, the band of Collegiate Alumni. All this is now 
 yours. Lay the diploma away now with the best of your 
 youthful treasures. Today you take your place in the 
 world of men. You have reached your majority. One by 
 one, you have passed the goals your teachers have set for 
 you. The goals of the future must be of your own choos- 
 ing. It is yours now to think, and therefore to act for 
 yourselves. This you can surely do. It will be no new 
 experience. Your training in the past has been such, we 
 trust, that the new freedom will be new in name only. It 
 will come to you with no shock of surprise, for in freedom 
 you have been trained for freedom. 
 
 You of the Class of 1895 have occupied a unique position 
 toward this University. You were the first, the band of 
 pioneers. It has been yours to lead, never to follow. Those
 
 20 Address to the Graduates. 
 
 who in future years are drawn to these halls may weigh 
 and compare, balance privilege with privilege, opportunity 
 with opportunity ; their choice will be governed by influ- 
 ences which in part have come out from you. They will 
 measure the future by the past. For you there was no 
 past. You trusted the forces the University seemed to 
 represent. You have given your best years of training to 
 this institution when it had no record of achievement, no 
 wealth of tradition. You have been University makers. 
 The highest value of tradition lies in the making of it ; the 
 noblest wealth is the wealth of promise. It is the place of 
 the pioneer to make for the future, not to share in the past. 
 
 When nearly four years ago we came for the first time 
 together in this quadrangle, you with your teachers were 
 the University. The Universit}' lives in the changing units 
 that pass through its halls. The life of its beginning was 
 yours alone. On that first day of October, 1891 — a day 
 memorable to all of us, at least — it was my fortune to say 
 these words to you : 
 
 "It is for us as teachers and students in the University's 
 first year to lay the foundations of a school which may last 
 as long as human civilization. Ours is the youngest of the 
 universities, but it is heir to the wisdom of all the ages, and 
 with this inheritance it has the promise of a rapid and 
 sturdy growth. Our University has no history to fall back 
 upon ; no memories of great teachers haunt its corridors ; 
 in none of its rooms appear the traces which show where 
 a great man has ever lived or worked. No tender asso- 
 ciations cling, ivy-like, to its fresh new walls. It is hal- 
 lowed by no traditions ; it is hampered by none. Its 
 finger-post still points forward. Traditions and associa- 
 tions it is ours to make. From our work the future of the 
 University will grow as a splendid lily from a modest bulb. 
 But the future with its glories and its responsibilities will 
 be in other hands. It is ours at the beginning to give 
 the University its form, its tendencies, its customs. The 
 power of precedent will cause to be repeated over and over
 
 Address to the Graduates. 21 
 
 again everything that we do — our errors as well as our 
 wisdom. It becomes us, then, to begin the work modestly, 
 as under the eye of the coming ages. We must lay the 
 foundations broad and firm, so as to give full support to 
 whatever edifice the future may build." 
 
 Four years is a short time as we measure history, even 
 the history of universities. But it is a long time when we 
 consider all that can take place in it. These four years 
 have been hallowed by the noblest courage and devotion 
 you and I have ever known. The self-sacrifice which we 
 know, though the world does not, and by virtue of which 
 we are together here today, has left its mark on every one 
 of you. You have learned to know how wealth and power 
 can be expressed in terms of helpfulness. In helpfulness 
 alone can wealth or power find consecration. 
 
 Again these four years are long when measured by the 
 growing thoughts of growing minds. They have been long 
 enough for the University to place on you its ineffaceable 
 stamp. Men and women of Stanford you shall be so long 
 as you live, and longer — so long as your memory shall 
 last. The beloved name of Leland Stanford Jr. has fallen 
 to you as an heritage. In the future it shall stand for 
 what you make it. It has been yours to help frame once 
 for all its definition. You have placed your mark on the 
 University, and the generations that follow cannot change 
 this mark, they can only deepen it. In your foot-steps the 
 students of the future must stand. You are the pioneers. 
 Wherever you may go, in whatever situation you may be 
 placed, you will embody the spirit of the Stanford Univer- 
 sity. 
 
 In these four years we have made some history, formed 
 some associations, uttered some distinctive word. What 
 shall our message be ? I can not answer this question. 
 No one can answer it now, for the message must be ex- 
 pressed by each one of you in his own way, and to the 
 people whom the incidents and happenings of life shall 
 bring about him as his neighbors.
 
 22 Address to the Graduates. 
 
 .Some part of this message lies in the words of Emerson : 
 " The best political economy is the care and culture of 
 men." The care and culture of men does not mean their 
 coddling, but their training — not help from without, but 
 growth from within. The harsh experience of centuries 
 has shown that men are not made by easy processes. Char- 
 acter is a hard}- plant ; it thrives best where the north 
 wind tempers the sunshine. 
 
 The life of civilized man is no simple art, no auto- 
 matic process. To make life easy is to bring it to failure. 
 The civilization to which we are born makes heavy de- 
 mands upon those who take part in it. Its rights are all 
 duties ; its privileges are all responsibilities. Its penalties 
 are terrible upon those who do not make their responsibili- 
 ties good. And these responsibilities are not individual 
 alone. They fall upon all who are bound together in social 
 or industrial alliance. If we are to bear one another's bur- 
 dens, we must see that no unnecessary burdens are laid 
 upon us by our indifference or ignorance. There is no 
 safety for the Republic, no safety for the individual man 
 for whom the Republic exists, so long as he or his fellows 
 are untrained or not trained aright. 
 
 So there is no virtue in educational systems unless these 
 systems meet the needs of the individual. It is not the 
 ideal man or the average man who is to be trained, it is 
 the particular man, as the forces of Nature have made him. 
 His own qualities determine his needs. " A child is better 
 unborn than untaught." A child, however educated, is 
 still untaught if by his teaching we have not emphasized 
 his individual character, if we have not strengthened his 
 will and its guide and guardian, the mind. 
 
 The essence of manhood lies in the growth of the power 
 of choice. In the varied relations of life the power to 
 choose means the duty of choosing right. To choose the 
 right one must have the wit to know it and the will to de- 
 mand it. In the long run, in small things as in large, 
 wrong choice is punished by death. No republic can live.
 
 » 
 Address to the Graduates. 23 
 
 no man can live, in a republic in which wrong is the re- 
 peated choice either of the people or of the State. 
 
 All education must be individual, fitted to individual 
 needs. That which is not is unworthy of the name. A 
 misfit education is no education at all. Every man that 
 lives has a right to some form of higher education. For 
 there is no man that would not be made better and 
 stronger by continuous training. I do not mean, of course, 
 that the conventional college education of today could be 
 taken by every man to his advantage. Still less could 
 the average man use the conventional college education 
 of any past era. Higher education has seemed to be the 
 need of the few, because it has been so narrow. It was 
 made for the few. Its type was fixed and pre-arranged, 
 and those whose minds it did not fit were looked upon by 
 the colleges as educational outcasts. The rewards of inves- 
 tigation, the pleasures of high thinking, the charms of har- 
 mony, have never yet been for the multitude. To the mul- 
 titude they must be accessible in the future. Not as a gift, 
 for nothing worth having was ever a gift. Rather as a 
 right to be taken by those who can. To yield the higher 
 education that humanity needs the college must be broad 
 as humanity. No spark of talent man may possess should 
 be outside its fostering care. To fit man into schemes of 
 education has been the mistake of the past. To fit educa- 
 tion to man is the work of the future. 
 
 The traditions of higher education in America had their 
 origin in social conditions very different from ours. In the 
 Golden Age of Greece each free man stood on the back of 
 nine slaves. The freedom which might have come to the 
 ten was the birthright of the one. To train the tenth man 
 was the function of the early university. A part of this 
 training must be in the arts by which the nine were kept 
 in subjection. 
 
 The Universities of Paris and Oxford and Cambridge 
 rose for the purpose of training the lord and the priest. 
 And to these schools and their successors as time went on
 
 24 Address to the Graduates. 
 
 fell the duty of training the gentleman and the clergyman. 
 Only in our day has it heen recognized that the common 
 man had part or lot in higher education ; for now he has 
 come into his own, and he demands that he too ma}' be 
 noble and gentle. His own lord and king he is already, 
 and in the next century we shall see the common man in- 
 stalled as his own priest. And through higher education 
 he must gain fitness for his work, if he gains it at all. And 
 he must gain it, for the future of civilization is in his 
 hands. The world can not afford to let him fail. All the 
 ages have looked forward to the common man as their " heir 
 apparent." The whole past of humanity is staked on his 
 success. The old traditions are not sufficient for him. The 
 narrow processes by which gentlemen were trained in medi- 
 aeval Oxford are not adequate to the varied demands of the 
 man of the twentieth century. Heir to all the ages he 
 must be — and there are ages since, as there were before 
 the tasks set in these schools became stereotyped as culture. 
 The need of cboice has become a thousand-fold greater with 
 the extension of human knowledge and human power. The 
 need of choosing right is steadily growing more and more 
 imperative. If the common man is to be his own lord and 
 his own priest in these strenuous days, his strength must 
 be as great, his consecration as intense, as it was with those 
 who were his rulers in ruder and less trying times. The 
 osmosis of classes is still going on. By its silent force it 
 has " pulled down the mighty from their seats and has ex- 
 alted them of low degree." Again, educate our rulers ; for 
 we find that they need it. They have not yet in the aggre- 
 gate the brains nor the conscience nor the force of will that 
 fits them for the task the fates have thrown upon them. 
 
 If the civilization of the one is shared b} r the ten, it must 
 increase ten-fold in amount. If it does not, the Golden 
 Age it seems to represent must pass away. To hold the 
 civilization we enjoy today is the work of higher education. 
 Every moment we feel it slipping from our hands. Hence 
 every moment we must strive for a fresh hold. " Eternal
 
 Address to the Graduates. 25 
 
 vigilance," it was said of old, "is the price of liberty." 
 And this is what was meant. The perpetuation of free in- 
 stitutions rests with free men. The masses, the mobs of 
 men, are never free. Hence the need of the hour is to break 
 up the masses. Let them be masses no more, but living 
 men and women. The work of higher education is to draw 
 forth from the multitude the man. To tyranny, confusion 
 is succeeding ; and the remedy for confusion is in the 
 growth of men who cannot be confused. 
 
 This University, more than any other in the world, has 
 recognized the need of the individual student as the reason 
 for its existence. It has held that if we are to make men 
 and women out of boys and girls, it will be as individuals, 
 not as classes. The best field of corn is that in which the 
 individual stalks are most strong and most fruitful. Class 
 legislation has always proved pernicious and ineffective, 
 whether in a university or in a state. The strongest nation 
 is that in which the individual man is most helpful and 
 most independent. The best school is that which exists for 
 the individual student. Our University is not an aggrega- 
 tion of colleges, departments, or classes — it is built up of 
 young men and women. The student is its unit. Its basal 
 idea of education is that each student should devote his 
 time and strength to what is best for him ; that no force of 
 tradition, no rule of restraint, no bait of a degree, should 
 swerve any one from his own best educational path. As 
 Professor Anderson has said : " The way to educate a man 
 is to set him at work ; the way to get him to work is to in- 
 terest him ; the way to interest him is to vitalize his task 
 by relating it to some form of reality." No man was ever 
 well trained whose own soul was not wrought into the pro- 
 cess. No student was ever brought to any worthy work 
 except by his own consent. 
 
 So the University must not drive, but lead. Nor in the 
 long run should it even lead, for the training of the will is 
 effected by the exercise of self-guidance. The problem of 
 human development is to bring men into the right path by 
 their own realization that it is good to walk therein.
 
 26 Address to the Graduates. 
 
 The student must feel with every day's work that it has 
 some place in the formation of his character. His char- 
 acter he must form for himself, but higher education gives 
 him the materials. His character gathers consecration as 
 the work goes on if he can see for himself the place of each 
 element in his training. Its value he has tested and he 
 knows that it is good, and its results he learns to treasure 
 accordingly. 
 
 Individualism in education is no discovery of our times. 
 It was by no means invented at Palo Alto, neither was it 
 born in Harvard nor in Michigan. The need of it is 
 written in the heart of man. It has found recognition 
 wherever the " care and culture " of man has been taken 
 seriously. 
 
 A Japanese writer, Uchimura, says this of education in 
 old Japan : 
 
 " We were not taught in classes then. The grouping of 
 soul-bearing human beings into classes, as sheep upon 
 Australian farms, was not known in our old schools. Our 
 teachers believed, I think instinctively, that man (persona) 
 is unclassifiable, that he must be dealt with personally — 
 i. e., face to face and soul to soul. So they schooled us one 
 by one, each according to his idiosyncracies, physical, men- 
 tal, and spiritual. They knew every one of us by his name. 
 And as asses were never harnessed with horses, there was 
 but little danger of the latter being beaten down into stu- 
 pidity, or the former driven into valedictorians' graves. In 
 this respect, therefore, our old-time teachers in Japan 
 agreed with Socrates and Plato in their theory of education. 
 
 " So naturally the relation between teachers and students 
 was the closest one possible. We never called our teachers 
 by that unapproachable name, Professor. We called them 
 Sensei, men born before, so named because of their prior 
 birth, not only in respect of the time of their appearance in 
 this world, which was not always the case, but also of their 
 coming to the understanding of the Truth. 
 
 " It was this, our idea of relationship between teacher
 
 Address to the Graduates. 27 
 
 and student, which made some of us to comprehend at once 
 the intimate relation between the Master and the disciples 
 which we found in the Christian Bible. When we found 
 written therein that the disciple is not above his master, 
 nor the servant above his lord, or that the good shepherd 
 giveth his life for his sheep, and other similar sayings, we 
 took them almost instinctively as things known to us long 
 before." 
 
 Thus it was in old Japan. Thus should it be in new 
 America. In such manner do the oldest ideas forever 
 renew their youth, when these ideas are based not on tradi- 
 tion nor convention, but in the nature of Man. 
 
 The best care and culture of man is not that which re- 
 strains his weakness, but that which gives play to his 
 strength. We should work for the positive side of life. To 
 get rid of vice and folly is to let strength grow in their 
 place. 
 
 The great danger in Democracy is the seeming predomi- 
 nance of the weak. The strong and the true seem to be 
 never in the majority. The politician who knows the signs 
 of the times understands the ways of majorities. He knows 
 fully the weakness of the common man. Injustice, vio- 
 lence, fraud, and corruption are all expressions of this 
 weakness. These do not spring from competition, but from 
 futile efforts to stifle competition. Competition means fair 
 play. Unfair play is the confession of weakness. 
 
 The; strength of the common rnan our leaders do not 
 know. Ignorant, venal, and vacillating the common man 
 is at his worst, but he is also earnest, intelligent, and deter- 
 mined. To know him at his best is the essence of states- 
 manship. His power for good may be used as well as his 
 power for evil. It was this trust of the common man that 
 made the statesmanship of Lincoln. And under such a 
 leader the common man ceases to be common. To know 
 strength is the secret of power. To work with the best in 
 human nature is to have the fates on your side. He who 
 strikes as the}^ strike has the force of Infinity in his blows. 
 He who defies them wields a club of air. 
 
 t \d \ i- r- m i v.
 
 28 Address to the Graduates. 
 
 "A flaw in thought an inch long," says a Chinese poet, 
 " leaves a trace of a thousand miles." If collective action 
 is to be safe, the best thought of the best men must control 
 it. It is the ideal of statesmanship to bring these best 
 thoughts into unison. The flaw in the thought of each one 
 will be corrected by the clear vision of others. And this 
 order and freedom, clear vision and clean acting, we have 
 the right to expect from you. Knowledge is power, because 
 thought is convertible into action. Ignorance is weakness, 
 because without clearness of purpose action can never be 
 effective. 
 
 The best political economy is the care and culture of 
 men. The best spent money of the present is that which is 
 used for the future. The force which is used on the present 
 is spent or wasted. That which is used on the future is 
 repaid with compound interest. It is for you to show, that 
 effort for the future of which you are the subjects is not 
 wasted effort. That you will do so we have no shadow of 
 doubt. If its influence on you and you only were the 
 whole of the life of the University we love, it would be 
 worth all it has cost. The money and the effort, the faith 
 and devotion these halls have seen, would not be wasted. 
 It will abide in the hearts of men, and so long as California 
 shall live the Leland Stanford Jr. University will be justi- 
 fied in you. You are her children — first-born, and it 
 may be best-beloved — and in the ever-widening circle of 
 your work she shall rejoice. For your influence will be 
 positive and therefore effective. You will stand for the 
 love of man and the love of truth. No one can love man 
 aright who does not love truth better. And in the end 
 these loves are alike in essence. 
 
 The foundation of a university, as Professor Howard has 
 told us, may be an event greater in the history of the world 
 than the foundation of a state. By its life is it justified. 
 The state at the best exists for the men and women that 
 compose it. Its needs can never be the noblest, its aims 
 never the highest, because it can never rise above the pres-
 
 Address to the Graduates. 29 
 
 ent. Its limit of action is that which now is. The uni- 
 versity stands for the future. It deals with the possibilities 
 of men, with the strength and virtue of men which is not 
 realized. Its foundation is the co-operation of the strong, 
 its function to convert weakness into strength. The uni- 
 versities of Europe have shaped the civilization of the 
 world. The universities of the world will shape the growth 
 of man so long as civilization shall abide. 
 
 To the care and culture of men and women this Univer- 
 sity has been dedicated. As I said to you when we came 
 together so I say to you again : 
 
 " The Golden Age of California begins when its gold is 
 used for purposes like this. From such deeds must rise the 
 new California of the coming century, no longer the Cali- 
 fornia of the gold seeker and the adventurer, but the abode 
 of high-minded men and women, trained in the wisdom of 
 the ages and imbued with the love of nature, the love of 
 man, and the love of God. And bright indeed will be the 
 future of our State if, in the usefulness of the University, 
 every hope and prayer of the founders shall be realized."
 
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