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 Jane Lathrop Stanford 
 By- 
 David Starr Jordan
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 JANE LATHEOP STANFORD 
 
 By Pkbsident DAVID STARR JORDAN 
 
 Keprinted from the Poptjlak Science Monthly, August, 1909.
 
 [Reprinted from The Popular Science Monthly, August, 1909.] 
 
 JANE LATHROP STANFORD 
 A Eulogy 1 
 
 Bx President DAVID STARR JORDAN 
 
 STANFORD UNIVERSITY 
 
 I AM to tell you to-day the story of a noble life, of one of the bravest, 
 wisest, most patient, most courageous and most devout of all the 
 women who have ever lived. I want to give to those of the university 
 to whom its founders are but a memory some lasting picture of the 
 woman who saved the university, which she and her honored husband 
 founded in faith and hope, and who thus made possible the education 
 you are receiving. I want to make my story as impersonal as I can, 
 as though I spoke not for myself but for all of you, men and women of 
 Stanford, with all gratitude towards the many who have helped in the 
 great work, and with all charity towards those whose interests or whose 
 conscientious convictions ranged them on the other side. If I am suc- 
 cessful, you will see more clearly than ever before the lone, sad figure of 
 the mother of the university, strong in her trust in God and in her 
 loyalty to her husband's purposes, happy only in the belief that in 
 carrying out her husband's plans for training the youth of California 
 in virtue and usefulness she was acting the part to which she was as- 
 signed. 
 
 We have often said that Stanford University belongs to the Stan- 
 ford students. It was the free gift of the founders, man and woman 
 that were, to the students, the men and women that were to be. It is 
 your university, yours and yours only, as once it was theirs. 
 
 But we must not interpret this gift too narrowly. It is not yours, 
 you students of to-day, to have or to hold in any exclusive way. The 
 university belongs to all the students, those who have been here, some 
 ten thousand in all, those who are here to-day, seventeen hundred more 
 or less, and those who are to come. Before these we count as nothing, for 
 the students to come will number for each century about a hundred 
 thousand. And there are many of these centuries, for the world is still 
 very young, and a university once firmly rooted is as nearly eternal as 
 human civilization itself can be. The university stands for the highest 
 thought and wisest action possible for man, and the need of a univer- 
 sity must endure so long as man exists ; and that will be for a very long 
 time. Man is bounded by the limits of space, but the race once estab- 
 lished on this planet of ours, we see no limit of time, no prospect of a 
 
 1 Founder's Day address at Stanford University, March 9, 1909.
 
 i 5 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 
 
 twilight <>f gods in which the darkness Bhall Call on the world because 
 universities are no longer Deeded. 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, hut 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 arc 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. Xot 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
 
 JANE LATHROP STANFORD 159 
 
 . thread, but that thread the greatest thing in the world, the love of a 
 good woman. If for an instant in all these years this good woman 
 had wavered in her purposes, if for a moment she had yielded to fear or 
 even to the pressure of worldly wisdom, you and I would not have been 
 here to-day. The strain, the agony, was all hers, and hers the final vic- 
 tory. And so any account of these years must take the form of eulogy. 
 Eulogy, in its old Greek meaning is speaking well, and my every word 
 to-day must be a word of praise. It is proper, too, that I should speak 
 these words, and even that I should give this history from my own 
 standpoint, because there were few besides myself who knew the facts 
 in those days. Most of these facts even it is well for all of us to for- 
 get. For the rest, the facts in issue will appear only as needed for the 
 background, before which we may see the figure of Mrs. Stanford. 
 
 I first saw the Governor and Mrs. Stanford at Bloomington, Indi- 
 ana, in March, 1891. At that time, Governor Stanford, under the 
 advice of Andrew D. "White, the President of Cornell, asked me to come 
 to California to take charge of the new institution which he was soon 
 to open. He told me the story of their son, of their buried hopes, of 
 their days and nights of sorrow, and of how he had once awakened 
 from a troubled night with these words on his lips : " The children of 
 California shall be my children." He told me the extent of his prop- 
 erty and of his purposes in its use. He hoped to build a university of 
 the highest order, one which should give the best of teaching in all its 
 departments, one which should be the center of invention and research, 
 
 \ giving to each student the secret of success in life. No cost was to 
 
 I be spared, no pains to be avoided, in bringing this university to the 
 
 £ highest possible effectiveness. 
 
 3 In all this Mrs. Stanford was most deeply interested, supporting his 
 
 I purposes, guarding his strength, alert at every point, and always in the 
 
 E fullest sympathy. 
 
 Mr. Stanford explained that thus far only buildings and land had 
 been given, but that practically the whole of the common estate would 
 go in time to the university, when the founders had passed away. If 
 he should himself survive, the gift would be his and hers jointly, though 
 the final giving would be left to him. If the wife should survive, the 
 property would be hers, and in her hands would lie the final joy of 
 giving. Mr. Stanford gave his reason for not turning over the prop- 
 erty at once, for this might leave his wife no controlling part in the 
 future. It was not his wish that she should sit idly by while others 
 should create the university. So long as she lived, it was his wish that 
 the building of the university should be her work. 
 
 This attitude of chivalry in all this needs this word of explanation, 
 for it shaped the whole future history of the university endowment. It 
 was the source of some of the embarrassments which followed, and per- 
 haps as well of the final success. 
 
 302382
 
 i6o THE POPULAR .-('IIWCE MONTHLY 
 
 The university was opened on the first day of October, 1891, a clear, 
 bright, golden, California day, typical of Califonii;i October, ami full 
 of good omen, as all days in California are likely to be. There were 
 (tn the opening day 165 Btudents, with only 15 Instructors, and the first 
 
 duly of the president was to telegraph for more teachers, laying tribute 
 on many institutions in the easi and in the west. 
 
 Two years followed, with their varied adventures, which I need not 
 relate to-day. It was on the twenty-second of June, 1893, that the 
 university community was startled by the sudden death of Leland 
 Stanford. 
 
 It is not my purpose now to praise the founder of the university. 
 One single incident at his funeral is firmly fixed in my memory. The 
 clergyman, Horatio Stebbins, in his stately fashion told a story of the 
 Greeks doing honor to a dead hero; then, turning to the pall-bearers, 
 stalwart railway men, he said: "Gentle up your strength a little, for 
 'tis a man ye bear." A man, in all high senses, in that noblest of words, 
 a man ! was Leland Stanford. 
 
 After the founder's death, the estate fell into the hands of the 
 courts. The will was in probate, the debts of the estate had to be paid, 
 the various ramifications of business had to be disentangled, and mean- 
 while came on the fierce panic of 1893. All university matters stopped 
 for the summer. Salaries could not be paid until it was found out by 
 the courts by whom and to whom salaries were due. All incomes 
 from business ceased. There was no such thing as income visible to 
 any one, least of all to the great corporations. 
 
 After Governor Stanford's death, Mrs. Stanford kept to her rooms 
 for a week or two. She had much to plan and much to consider. 
 From every point of view of worldly wisdom, it was best to close the 
 university until the estate was settled and in her hands, its debts paid 
 and the panic over. Her own fortune was in the estate itself. Outside 
 of her jewels, she had practically nothing of her own save the com- 
 munity estate, and this could not be hers until the payment of all 
 debts and legacies had been completed. These debts and legacies 
 amounted as a whole to eight millions of dollars. In normal times, 
 there was hardly money enough in California to pay this amount: but 
 these were not normal times, and there was no money in California to 
 pay anything. 
 
 After these two weeks, Mrs. Stanford called me to her house to sav 
 that the die was east. She was going ahead with the university. She 
 would let us have whatever money she could get. We must come down 
 to bed rock on expenses, but with the help of the Lord and the memory 
 of her husband, the university would go ahead and fulfil its mission. 
 
 It was no easy task to do this, as one incident will show. There 
 could be no regularity in the payment of salaries. In the eyes of the 
 law the university professors were Mrs. Stanford's personal servants.
 
 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-
 
 i6a THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 
 
 ate. We had nothing to run on, save the precarious servant allow- 
 ance, then fixed at $12,500 peT month, and liable to be cui to nothing 
 ni any day. Our expenses for isii:; bad been nearly $18,000 per 
 month. Sometimes we could sell a few horses from the stock farm, but 
 it was never clear that the stock farm belonged to the university and 
 not to the Stanford estate, and every dollar we gained this way piled 
 up the possibilities of litigation. All these days were brightened by 
 the steady support of her friends and advisers, Samuel F. Leib, Timothy 
 ITopkins and Russell Wilson. Mr. Hopkins furnished the Library of 
 Biology and paid unasked many minor expenses, his left hand not 
 taking receipts for what his right hand was doing. No one can tell 
 how much the university owes to these men, who in the darkest days 
 planned to make the future possible. Very much too the university 
 owed to the fraternal devotion of Mrs. Stanford's brother, Mr. Charles 
 G. Lathrop, who cared for with sympathetic hand the scanty receipts 
 and scanty fragments of these harassed days. The warm sympathy 
 of Thomas Welton Stanford came from across the seas. His gift of 
 the Library Building came as a shadow of a great rock in a weary land. 
 
 At last, adjustment of one kind after another being made, there 
 •was a glimpse of daylight, when we were thrust without warning into 
 still darker night. 
 
 The government suit for fifteen millions w r as brought for the pur- 
 pose of tying up everything in the Stanford estate until the debts of 
 the Central Pacific Railway were paid. It was not claimed that the 
 university owed anything, or that the Stanford estate owed anything, 
 or that the railway owed anything, on which payment was due, and as a 
 matter of fact the Southern Pacific Company paid in full every dollar 
 it owed to the government as soon as it became due, and with full in- 
 terest. There was never any reason to suppose that it would not do so, 
 and never any reason to suppose that it could not afford to pay this 
 debt, for the power to control the line from Ogden to San Francisco, 
 called the Central Pacific, was in itself an enormous asset, worth the 
 value of this debt. Failure to pay this debt would have meant loss of 
 control of the most valuable single factor in the great railroad system. 
 
 The claim of the United States was secured by a second mortgage 
 on the Central Pacific. It was supposed that it would be sold to satisfy 
 the first mortgage, and that it would realize no more than this sum, 
 leaving, as a railway manager cynically expressed it, nothing but " two 
 streaks of rust and the right of way." The government proposed, by 
 a sort of injunction, to hold up the Stanford property, which would 
 then be seized, in case the Southern Pacific Railway system should at 
 some future time be found in debt. There was no warrant in law or 
 in good policy foT this suit. One United States judge spoke of it as 
 " the crime of the century.*'' It is not easy to work out the motives,
 
 JANE LATHROP STANFORD 163 
 
 political or personal or what not, which inspired it. Fortunately, just 
 now it makes no difference. 
 
 The hardest feature of the matter lay in the attitude of those 
 jointly interested in the ownership of the Southern Pacific System. 
 These men declined to give any assistance in the struggle for justice 
 and for the endowment of the university. All were financially con- 
 cerned in the final outcome, but they left her to make the fight alone 
 and at her own cost. 
 
 It should be said that none of the present owners or managers of 
 the Southern Pacific were in any way concerned in this matter. It is 
 also fair to say that this attitude was only the business man's point of 
 view. It seemed impossible to save the estate and the university to- 
 gether. All receipts of the railroads (there were no profits) were 
 needed to continue its operations, and the outlays of the university 
 seemed to the other owners of the railway system to involve a danger- 
 ous policy. On the other hand, to Mrs. Stanford the estate existed 
 solely for the benefit of the university. To save the estate on these 
 terms was to her like throwing over the passengers to lighten the ship. 
 And as matters turned out, the university, the estate and the railway 
 were all saved alike. 
 
 Perhaps we can get at the nature of this suit from a couple of let- 
 ters written at the time. I find on our files a letter sent in November, 
 1894, to President Eliot of Harvard. In this letter I said : 
 
 I recognize of course that public sentiment can not be formed without a 
 basis of knowledge. The peculiar conditions in which this university finds itself 
 are not easily stated to the public. There are internal reasons why we can not 
 well take the country into confidence. Some of these reasons are connected with 
 the relations of the Stanford heirs. Others arise from our relations to our 
 future partner, in whose power we are, until the government suit is disposed of, 
 that is, until the settlement of the estate. 
 
 The grounds of the government suit, in brief, are these. The Central Pacific 
 Railroad was regarded as an impossibility by most of the people of California. 
 Its builders exhausted their funds and their credit and tried in vain to get help 
 from every quarter, even after receiving large donations of land then worthless 1 . 
 The U. S. government came to their aid, whether wisely or not, ... it does not 
 matter at present. The road when finished bore a first mortgage, covering all 
 that it is now worth. The government took a second mortgage upon it as 
 security for the payment of the debt due for the bonds it had advanced in aid 
 of the corporation. . . . 
 
 There is a law in California, by which the original stockholders in a cor- 
 poration are personally liable for its debts, if suit be begun within three years 
 after the organization of the corporation. This law was intended to check 
 " wild-cat " speculations. 
 
 It is claimed that under this law the estates of Stanford and Huntington 
 are still liable for the amount of the second mortgage, to come due in a few 
 years. It is claimed that the three-years' limitation does not hold against the 
 government. This question of liability had not been raised when the estates of 
 the two remaining partners were distributed, and its enforcement would be 
 possible as against the Stanford estate alone, as Mr. Huntington, being alive,
 
 [64 THE I'OI'I L.\i: SCIENCE MnSTIlLY 
 
 can withdraw his Interest! to Mexico, should the rail againsl .Mr. Stanford be 
 successful. Meanwhile, by the way, the question Is tested for him al 1 1 » . - expense 
 of the Stanford estate, the railroad Interests ><i which are In bis hands as 
 president of the road. . . . 
 
 ii is believed by :ill jurists whom we have consulted, that the government 
 has no case. The limitation of three yean being an Integral part of th<- -■ 
 in question, must hold againsl the governmenl as againsl others. Furthermore, 
 the aid extended by the government was ool a debl Incurred In business of the 
 corporation. 
 
 Eowever this may be, the courts will decide justly. Our anxiety i- that 
 they may decide speedily. 
 
 As to the various criticisms which you mention, permit me a word. In all 
 personal matters, Mr. Stanford was perfectly truthful and just. Except in 
 matters pertaining to the division of the earnings and bonds of the Central 
 Pacific and the fact that its afTairs were not made public, I have never heard 
 his railroad career seriously criticized. In California, he had a very wide fol- 
 lowing among the best men, men who liked and respected him, not on account 
 of his wealth and railroad connections, but rather in spite of them. In all the 
 railroad war through which this state is passing, no responsible person ha.s 
 uttered a slur against Mr. Stanford or against the university. 
 
 It is not true that Mr. Stanford pretended to give the university a dollar 
 more than he gave. He gave the three farms, formerly valued at $5,000,000, in 
 these times worth much less; all the movable stock upon them, about $1,000,000 
 more; the university buildings costing $1,250,000; and by will $2,500,000 in 
 cash. It was agreed by Mr. and Mrs. Stanford that each should be the residuary 
 legatee of the other, and that whichever should survive should devote the rest 
 of his or her life and estate to the university. The Stanford estate is therefore 
 the university's endowment. Not in law but in fact the estate is the university. 
 It was- Mr. Stanford's feeling, and I was fully aware of it, that should his wife 
 survive him, she should be free to endow the university and to control it as he 
 had done. No one has ever struggled more loyally to do so than Mrs. Stanford. 
 Since her husband died we have not received a dollar of his money, but the 
 university has gone on without check or hindrance, though at times she has 
 been forced to give up luxuries and to limit her expenses in every conceivable 
 way. As- a matter of fact, she has each year given me a personal bond for all 
 she thinks that she can raise from the farms and from her own small personal 
 property. Her devotion to the work is absolute and she is giving her life to it. 
 When she loses, she will die. 
 
 The lands are unsalable only because the deed of gift prohibits their sale. 
 In Mr. Stanford's lifetime they were conducted as parks. When they came into 
 our hands, their products fell short by $10,000 to $20,000 per month of meeting 
 the pay-rolls. This year under Mrs. Stanford's direction, they have yielded 
 upwards of $150,000 above expenses. The sale of colts is a source of revenue 
 now that the reputation of the Palo Alto stud is made. 
 
 No cash has ever been set aside in advance, for very simple reasons. I could 
 not ask for it. Mr. Stanford was not expecting sudden death, financial panics, 
 nor an attack from the government. He paid in cash all salaries and all bills, 
 placed no limits on me, and on his sudden death left no debts against the uni- 
 versity. There are now no debts left against his estate, which is appraised at 
 $17,000,000, except the government claim which acts as an injunction tying 
 everything up. It is not true that Mr. Stanford tried to "rear a personal 
 monument by a good use of ill-gotten money." No one ever gave monev in a 
 more generous spirit, and there have not been many great givers who placed so
 
 JANE LATHROP STANFORD 165 
 
 'few restrictions on their gifts. Personal vanity does not give without restric- 
 tions in its own interest. He claimed that no man in California was the poorer 
 for his wealth, which was true. It never occurred to him that it was "ill- 
 gotten " or needed any apology. 
 
 I know better than any one else, except his wife, can, how genuine Mr. 
 Stanford's interest was. He treated me, and through me, the university, with 
 perfect truthfulness and justice. For my part and that of the faculty, we have 
 tried to make the fund in our possession, count every dollar for a dollar to the 
 best advancement of higher education. % 
 
 As to the public at large, in time they will judge us by our fruits, if we 
 are allowed to live to bear fruitage. 
 
 To a loyal friend of Governor Stanford, Senator Hoar of Massa- 
 chusetts, I wrote this on June 20, 1894 : 
 
 You will pardon me for writing to you to express my very great pleasure 
 and that of Mrs. Stanford in the stand you have taken in defence of Senator 
 Stanford's memory and in the effort you have made toward the protection of 
 the university from the evil effects of prolonged litigation in which its endow- 
 ment would be at stake. 
 
 You who knew Senator Stanford well know that the recent attack of Mr. 
 Geary on his motives was without foundation in fact. The feeling of revenge 
 at any real or supposed slight on the part of the legislature in connection with 
 the State University, had nothing to do with his actions. He was not a man 
 to cherish that kind of feelings. The sole basis that accusation had was this: 
 Mr. Stanford acted for a few days as a member of the State Board of Regents. 
 He was very much surprised to find that this board ignored the recommenda- 
 tions of the president of the university, and in general were disposed to treat 
 the university chairs as personal " spoils." This led Mr. Stanford to doubt 
 whether, if he should endow a university for California, it would be wise to 
 place it in the hands of a political board of regents. These conditions in the 
 State Board have now changed for the better. Mr. Stanford always spoke most 
 kindly of the State University. He frequently consulted with its professors and 
 it was a great pleasure for him to know that the new institution has in every 
 way helped the old one. The friendly rivalry has been most salutary to both. 
 Instead of 450 college students in one school as in 1890, there are now 1,700 
 students in the two, besides the professional classes. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Mr. and Mrs. Stanford founded the university with 
 the sole purpose of putting their fortune to the best use of their country. 
 I know Mr. Stanford's motives in this regard as well as one man can know the 
 motives of another, and I know that no feeling of revenge and no selfish feeling 
 entered into these motives. 
 
 The university has now safely passed every other serious difficulty. Mrs. 
 Stanford has no other purpose in life than that of carrying out every detail of 
 her husband's purposes. Her devotion has shown itself in maintaining the work 
 of the university unimpaired during this period of hard times, while the estates 
 are in probate, and therefore not available for university purposes. 
 
 It would, I believe, be a great national calamity if this groat fund were 
 lost to higher education. It would be almost as great a calamity if it were 
 exposed to the delay and loss of prolonged litigation. 
 
 I assure you that the great majority of the self-respecting people of Cali- 
 fornia are very grateful to you for what you have done towards the protection 
 of the university endowment.
 
 1 66 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 
 
 The story of the passing of the great suit is known to all the old 
 students of the university. 
 
 It was brought to trial in San Francisco in the United States Dis- 
 trict Court, ami the university side of the question had the strong sup- 
 port of the great jurist, John Garber. 
 
 The decision of Judge Ross was against the claim of the govern- 
 ment. It was appealed and came before Judges Morrow, Gilbert and 
 Hawley, who again found no merit in the government contention. It 
 was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, and here our 
 case seemed hopeless. The Supreme Court moves slowly, and our life- 
 blood was ebbing fast. It takes money to run a university, and our 
 money was almost gone. To delay the matter was to destroy us, and 
 no one but ourselves had any interest in pushing along the decision. 
 
 Finally Mrs. Stanford went to Washington to appeal to President 
 Cleveland. She told him our story, and beseeched him to use his in- 
 fluence for a speedy settlement. Once for all, let us know the future 
 and we will stand by it. At last, President Cleveland saw his duty, 
 and through his influence the Stanford case was placed on the calendar 
 of the United States Supreme Court for speedy trial. Joseph Choate, 
 whose name every Stanford man should hold in grateful memory, 
 supplemented the work of John Garber. The case came to trial, and 
 by a unanimous decision, the work of Justice Harlan, Stanford Uni- 
 versity was again free ! 
 
 The boys celebrated the victory as Stanford boys can. The United 
 States Postoffice on the campus, a wooden shack now removed, was 
 painted cardinal red, to its great improvement in appearance, and once 
 for all and forever the future of the university was assured. 
 
 This was the end of the dark days, but not of the days that were 
 difficult. There were still eight millions of dollars to be paid. There 
 was still the uncertainty as to whether Mrs. Stanford could survive 
 to pay it, and the estate must come into her hands before she could give 
 it to the university. She made many attempts to facilitate this trans- 
 fer. At one time, we have the pathetic figure of the good woman going 
 to the Queen's Jubilee in London, with all her own possessions, half a 
 million of dollars worth of jewels, in a suit case carried in her hand. 
 She hoped to sell these to advantage, when all the world was gathered 
 in London. But the market was not good, and three fourths of them 
 she brought back to California again. 
 
 And this seems the appropriate place for the story of the jewel 
 fund. It is told in an address made at the foundation of the Library 
 Building, and again and finally in a resolution of the Board of Trustees. 
 
 On May 15, 1905, I said: 
 
 There was once a man — a real man. vigorous, wealthy and powerful. He 
 loved his wife greatly, for she, wise, loyal, devoted, was worthy of such love. 
 And because among all the crystals in all the world the diamond is the hardest
 
 JANE LATHROP STANFORD 167 
 
 and sparkles the brightest, and because the ruby is most charming, and the 
 emerald gentlest — the man bought gifts of these all for his wife. 
 
 As the years passed a great sorrow came to them; their only child died in 
 the glory of his youth. In their loneliness there came to these two the longing 
 to help other children, to use their wealth and power to aid the youth of future 
 generations to better and stronger life. They lived in California and they loved 
 California; and because California loved them, as she loves all her children, 
 this man said, " The children of California shall be my children." To make this 
 true in very fact he built for them a beautiful " Castle in Spain," with cloisters 
 and towers, and " red tiled roofs against the azure sky " — for " skies are bluest 
 in the heart of Spain." This castle, the Castle of Hope, which they called the 
 university, they dedicated to all who might enter its gates, and it became to 
 them the fulfilment of the dream of years — a dream of love and hope, of faith 
 in God and good will toward men. 
 
 In the course of time the man died. The power he bore vanished; his 
 wealth passed to other hands; the work he had begun seemed likely to fail. But 
 the woman rose from her second great sorrow and set herself bravely to the 
 task of completing the work as her husband had planned it. " The children of 
 California shall be my children " — that thought once spoken could never be 
 unsaid. The doors of the castle once opened could never be closed. To those 
 who helped her in these days she said: "We may lose the farms, the railways, 
 the bonds, but still the jewels remain. The university can be kept alive by these 
 till the skies clear and the money which was destined for the future shall come 
 into the future's hands. The university shall be kept open. When there is no 
 other way, there are still the jewels." 
 
 Because there always remained this last resource, the woman never knew 
 defeat. No one can who strives for no selfish end. " God's errands never fail," 
 and her errand was one of good will and mercy. And when the days were 
 darkest, the time came when it seemed the jewels must be sold. Across the sea 
 to the great city this sorrowful, heroic woman journeyed alone with the bag of 
 jewels in her hand that she might sell them to the money changers that flocked 
 to the Queen's Jubilee. Sad, pathetic mission, fruitless, in the end, but full of 
 all promise for the future of the university, founded in faith and hope and love 
 — the trinity, St. Paul says, of things that abide. 
 
 But the jewels were not sold, save only a few of them, and these served a 
 useful purpose in beginning anew the work of building the university. Better 
 times came. The money of the estate, freed from litigation, became available 
 for its destined use. The jewels found their way back to California to be held 
 in reserve against another time of need. 
 
 A noble church was erected — one of the noblest in the land, a fitting part 
 of the beautiful dream castle, the university. It needed to make it perfect the 
 warmth of ornamentation, the glory of the old masters, who wrought " when art 
 was still religion." To this end the jewels were dedicated. It was an appro- 
 priate use, but the need again passed. Other resources were found to adorn the 
 church — to fill its windows with beautiful pictures, to spread upon its walls 
 exquisite mosaics like those of St. Mark, rivaling even the precious stones of 
 Venice. 
 
 In the course of time the woman died also. She had the satisfaction of 
 seeing the buildings of the university completed, the cherished plans of her 
 husband, to which she had devoted anxious years, fully carried out. Death 
 came to her in a foreign land, but in a message written before her departure 
 to be read at the laying of the corner-stone of the great library, she made known
 
 x68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 
 
 the final destiny of the jewels. She directed that they should l><- told and theii 
 value made a permanenl endowment of the library of 1 1 1 *- university. 
 
 And bo the jewels have .-it Lead come to be the enduring possession of ill 
 the university — of ;ill who may tread these fields <>r enter these corridors, in 
 
 the memory of tin* earlier students lliey stiind for the (Quadrangle, who-e door-! 
 they kept open, and for the adornment of the church, which shall be to all 
 generations of students a source of joy and rest, a refining and uplifting influ- 
 ence. To the students who are to come in future days the message of the jewels 
 will be read in the books they study within these walls and the waves of their 
 influence spreading out shall touch the uttermost parts of the earth. 
 
 They say there is a language of precious stones, but I know that they speak 
 in diverse tongues. Some diamonds tell strange tales, but not these diamonds. 
 In the language of the jewels of Stanford may be read the lessons of faith, of 
 hope and good will. They tell how Stanford was founded in love of the things 
 that abide. 
 
 It was resolved by the Board of Trustees on May 29, 1908, as 
 
 follows : 
 
 Whereas, it was a cherished plan of Mrs. Jane L. Stanford that all jewels 
 left by her should be sold after her death, and that the proceeds (estimated by 
 her at more than five hundred thousand dollars) should be invested as a perma- 
 nent fund, of which the income should be used exclusively for the purchase of 
 books for the Library of the Leland Stanford Junior University; and 
 
 Whereas, the pressing financial needs of the university compelled her 
 temporarily to forego said plan, and to sell many of said jewels in her lifetime 
 in order to raise money to maintain the university; and 
 
 Whereas, by communication delivered to this board at its meeting, held 
 February 22, 1905, Mrs. Stanford declared: 
 
 " In view of the facts and of my interest in the future development of the 
 University Library, I now request the trustees to establish and maintain a 
 library fund, and upon the sale of said jewels, after my departure from this 
 life, I desire that the proceeds therefrom be paid into such fund and be pre- 
 served intact, and invested in bonds or real estate as a part of the capital of 
 the endowment, and that the income therefrom be used exclusively for the 
 purchase of books and other publications. I desire that the fund be known and 
 designated as the " Jewel Fund." I have created and selected a Library Com- 
 mittee of the Board of Trustees, under supervision of which all such purchases 
 should be made." 
 
 Now, therefore, in order to carry out said plan of Mrs. Stanford and to 
 establish and maintain an adequate library fund, and to perform the promise 
 made by this board to her, it is 
 
 Resolved, that a fund of five hundred thousand dollars, to be known and 
 designated as the "Jewel Fund" is hereby created and established, which fund 
 shall be preserved intact, and shall be separately invested and kept invested in 
 bonds or real estate by the Board of Trustees, and the income of said fund shall 
 be used exclusively in the purchase of books and other publications for the 
 Library of the Leland Stanford Junior University, under the supervision and 
 direction of the Library Committee of this Board of Trustees. 
 
 It was in these dark days that I was asked by President Cleveland 
 through Mr. Charles S. Hamlin, to go to Bering Sea to help settle the 
 fur seal disputes. 
 
 Before I started, in 1896, Mrs. Stanford said : " Xow that our af-
 
 JANE LATHROP STANFORD 169 
 
 fairs are looking so much better, do you not think that I might afford 
 to bring back my housekeeper ?" Her servants then were her secretary, 
 her Chinese cook, and an old man, a servant of other days, who served 
 as butler, without salary. 
 
 It was in these days, too, that Mrs. Stanford, going to Washington 
 to settle up the household affairs of the mansion occupied while Mr. 
 Stanford was senator, took four hundred dollars with her, lived in the 
 private car owned by the Governor, attended to the packing of her 
 goods, and the rental of her house to a senator from New York, and 
 brought back $340 of the amount, which she turned over to me, to be 
 used for the university. I have given this and other details private 
 and personal, but full of meaning as showing her devotion to the uni- 
 versity, and her utter unselfishness in carrying out the plans made by 
 herself and her husband for the welfare of the men and women of the 
 coming generations of California and of the world. "While matters in- 
 side the faculty and the details of instruction were left to those sup- 
 posed to be experts in these lines, for this was her husband's wish, she 
 had always before her his purposes. " What would Mr. Stanford do 
 under these conditions?" was always her first question; and in almost 
 every instance this question led to a wise decision. 
 
 To outside suggestions as to this or that, she used to reply : " I will 
 never concern myself with the religion, the politics or the love affairs 
 of any professor in Stanford University." And this resolution she 
 religiously kept. 
 
 With the passing of the government suit, conditions looked brighter. 
 The payment of the eight millions went on very slowly, because the 
 railway holdings could not be broken and must be sold as a whole if at 
 all. The taxes on properties yielding no income became an intolerable 
 burden. Besides, it was apparent that the original enabling act under 
 which the Board of Trustees was organized contained grave defects, 
 which might invalidate the actions of this Board. For this reason, 
 mainly, the Board of Trustees existed in name only, Mrs. Stanford 
 being in fact the sole trustee. 
 
 In 1899 the railroad holdings were sold, to good advantage, thanks 
 to the good offices of a well-known German banker whose name I am 
 glad to speak, James Speyer, and the estate at once passed out of debt. 
 Finally, piece by piece, it passed into Mrs. Stanford's hands, and each 
 piece was at once deeded to the Board of Trustees. The Board of 
 Trustees was legalized by a change in the State Constitution. The 
 university was by the same means relieved of part of the burden of its 
 taxes. At the earliest possible moment, Mrs. Stanford again and in 
 full transferred the whole estate to the board, reserving for herself a 
 relatively small sum "to play with" as she said, but in fact to give her 
 occupation and means to carry out in her own way other plans of 
 strengthening the university and of helping mankind. The Board of
 
 i7o THE POPULAR .SCIENCE MONTHLY 
 
 Trustees was then organized u a working body. lire. Stanford became 
 its president, and this history ; er into the bright daye of the 
 
 dawn of the twentieth century. 
 
 Mrs. Stanford then left the university for a trip around the world 
 by way of Australia and Ceylon. This was not that she wanted to see 
 the world, or to be absent from her beloved Palo Alto, but that she 
 wished to give to the Board of Trustees absolute freedom in taking up 
 their great responsibilities. She wished them to handle the accumu- 
 lated funds on their own initiative, without suggestion from herself. 
 
 The rest of the story can be told by others, for it is an open record. 
 The whole may be summed up in these words of Mrs. Stanford in a 
 letter written to me September 3, 1898: 
 
 Every dollar I can rightfully call mine is sacredly laid on the altar of my 
 love for the university, and thus it ever shall be. 
 
 That all this may seem more real, I venture to quote a few para- 
 graphs from personal letters of Mrs. Stanford written in the dark days 
 from 1893 to 1899. 
 
 On November 24, 1895, Mrs. Stanford wrote from the university: 
 
 It has been my policy to say as little about my financial affairs to the 
 outside world as possible, but I feel sure that I am doing myself and our blessed 
 work injustice by allowing the impression among all classes to feel certain 
 there is plenty of money, at my command, the future is assured, the battle 
 fought and won. ... I only ask righteous justice. I ask not for myself, but 
 that I may be able to discharge my duty and loyalty to the one who trusted me, 
 and loved me, and loves me still. I am so poor myself that I can not this year 
 give to any charity; not even do 1 give this festive season to any of my family. 
 I do not tell you this, kind friend, in a complaining way, for when one has 
 pleasant surroundings, all we want to eat and wear, added to this have those in 
 their lives we can count on as friends, it would be sinful to complain. I repeat 
 it only that you my friend may know, I ask only justice, to the dear ones gone 
 from earth life and the living one left. 
 
 I am willing you should speak plainly to any one who may question as to 
 the university or myself. I have many devoted and true loyal friends in Wash- 
 ington, and I am sure did they know I was kept from my rights, they would 
 speak their sentiments openly, and when it was known a public sentiment was 
 in my favor and against their unfairness, it would cause a different course to 
 be pursued toward me. I shall henceforth speak plainly, and I desire you to 
 do so. You will meet our good President, Mr. Cleveland, my good and true 
 friend Secretary Carlisle, Mr. John Foster and many others, and you . . . can 
 do our blessed work good and God will bless the act, and bring fruit to bear 
 from the seeds sown. I have kept myself and my affairs in the background. 
 It has been an inspiration from the source from which all good comes, from my 
 Father God — I trust Him to lead me all along the rest of the journey of life. 
 He has led me thua far through the deep waters, and joy will come, for He 
 never deserts the widow, the childless, the orphan. I have His promise "blessed 
 are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." 
 
 On the same day she said : 
 
 Everything is going on smoothly as far as I know at the university. The
 
 JANE LATHROP STANFORD 171 
 
 boys are wild over the game to be played. I hope they will win because my 
 boys will be happy if they win. 
 
 On July 20, 1896, she "wrote to a candidate for a professorship : 
 
 The university still is restricted and limited in its ambitions and its aims, 
 because of my inability to increase the number of students or the number of 
 professors. The gift of $2,500,000 in bonds which I have by the grace of God 
 been enabled to give to the trustees for the present and future maintenance of 
 the university brings in a monthly income of $10,000, while the actual expenses 
 for the faculty and the president and the necessary matters bring the sum total 
 of expenses per month to $19,000. This $9,000 I am obliged to furnish myself, 
 through the strictest economy and the husbanding of resources; consequently 
 I am not increasing expenses but on the contrary shall retrench in the future. 
 
 On December 28, 1895, she said: 
 
 I must confess to a feeling of great pride in our entire body of students, 
 both male and female, and I think we are all in a way under obligations to 
 them for their uniformly good conduct, and a desire, as my dear husband once 
 expressed it, to be ladies and gentlemen. 
 
 On July 29, 1895, she wrote: 
 
 I send a precious letter from Mr. Andrew White for you to read. I read it 
 with a heart running over with various emotions. Mr. Stanford esteemed him 
 so highly I could not but feel like asking God to let my loved ones in heaven 
 know the contents of this letter. I prize this letter beyond my ability to 
 express. It lifted my soul from its heaviness. My heart is one unceasing 
 prayer to the Allwise, All Merciful one, that all will be well for the future of 
 the good work under your care. When the end of our troubles is over, all 
 (these letters) will be placed in your hands for future reading by our students, 
 a story for them when I have passed into peace. 
 
 Soon after, she wrote : 
 
 I return herewith Mr. Choate's kind letter. God bless him, for he was a 
 friend indeed. 
 
 After the decision of Judge Boss (July 6, 1895), she wrote: 
 
 I dare not let my soul rejoice over the future. It must be more sure than 
 it is now. I hope and pray that the final decision will be as sure as the first. 
 It means more to me than you or the world have dreamed. It means an unsul- 
 lied, untarnished name as a blessed heritage to the university. My husband 
 often used to say: "A good name is better than riches." God can not but be 
 touched by my constant pleading, and this first decision by Judge Ross makes 
 me humble that I so unworthy should have received the smallest attention. 
 
 From Paris, August 30, 1897, she wrote : 
 
 I wish the rest of my responsibilities caused me as little care as does the 
 internal working of the good work. I am only anxious to furnish you the funds 
 to pay the needs required. I could live on bread and water to do this, my part, 
 and would feel that God and my loved ones in the life beyond this smiled on the 
 efforts to ensure the future of my dear husband's work to better humanity. 
 
 Again, in 1897, she writes to her trusted solicitor, Russell Wilson: 
 I stand almost alone in this blessed work left to my care, and I want and 
 
 302382
 
 i 7 2 THE POPl LAB 8CIENCE MONTHLY 
 
 11,. .I 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 i 
 
 w ii ii , i .11 1 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 exhaust 
 ingenuity and resources to such an extent thai had I nol the university so close 
 to my heart I would relieve myself of this enormous burden and take re.it and 
 recreation for the next year. But I prefer to see the good work going on in 
 its present condition, and 1 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
 
 JANE LATHROP STANFORD 173 
 
 have the university not large but choice. There should be no more students 
 than could be well taken care of, no more departments than could be placed in 
 master hands, no teachers to whom the students could not look up as to men 
 whose work and life should be an inspiration to them. The buildings should 
 be beautiful, for to see beautiful things in a land of beauty is one of the greatest 
 elements in the refinement of clean men and women. Great libraries and great 
 collections the university should have, but libraries and collections should be 
 chosen for their fitness in the training of men. And with all the activities of 
 athletics, of scholarly research, of the applications of science to engineering, the 
 spirit of " self-devotion and of self-restraint," by which lives have been " made 
 beautiful and sweet " through all the centuries should rise above all else, 
 dominating the lower aspirations and activities as the great church towers 
 above the red tiles of the lower buildings. But for all this, the Church should 
 exist for men — for the actual men who enter its actual doors — not men for the 
 Church. For this reason, any special alliance with any of the historic churches 
 of Christendom is forever forbidden. 
 
 We do not yet see all these things. Rome was not built in a day, nor 
 Stanford in a century. But as the old pioneers returning now behold in solid 
 stone the dream-castles of their college days, so shall you, Stanford men and 
 women, find here as you come back to future reunions, the university of your 
 dreams, the university of great libraries and noble teachers, the university of 
 the perfect democracy of literature and science, " of self-devotion and of self- 
 restraint," the university in which earnest men and women find the best possible 
 preparation for work in life, the university which sends out men who will make 
 the future of the republic worthy of the glories of its past, the university of 
 the plans and hopes of Leland Stanford, the university of the faith and work 
 and prayer of Jane Lathrop Stanford.
 
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