,mry t0 (^n\U^t BY John C. Branner. Ph.D. > D z Q O a. z < CQ U Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/fromschooltocollOObranrich From School to College BY JOHN C. BRANNER, PH. D. VICE-PRESIDENT LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY Press of Muirson &, Wright San Jose, California Preface. This practical and inspiring address was given to the graduating class of the Washburn School June ig^ 1903. In sending it out now to a larger audience^ we do so in the belief that it will be helpful to fnany a perplexed Freshman in teaching him to m,ake a wise use of his new freedom, — the best use of his new oppor- tunities. ARTHUR WASHBURN, JESSICA WASHBURN, San Jose ^ California. 291042 Prom School to College. YOUNG women and young men, you have now finished your preparatory studies at the Wash- bum School and are about to enter college. Your teachers have given you much wise counsel, but the chances are that you have been so busy trying to remember the genders and declensions of Latin nouns, the conjugations of verbs, or the processes of proving that something of no importance at all is equal to something else of even less importance, that you have not had time to consider or even to remember their advice about things that are really vital. So perhaps just now, the first time you have had a little breathing spell for years, you are in a mood to listen to one who is pretty familiar with the road you must travel, and who has helped guide along it many feet both willing and wayward. When David Copperfield, a very small orphan with all the serious problems of life pressing hard upon him, turned up, foot-sore and begrimed, at the door of his Aunt Betsy Trotwood, that good 1 woman applied to her oracle for advice as to what she should do with him. And Mr. Dick, instead of going into the boy's past or looking into his future, and without considering the rights, duties and privileges of all parties concerned, simply looked at what was in front of him and replied: **If I was you I should wash him.'" Certain questions that you and your friends may reasonably be assumed to ask to-night, I should like to answer as Mr. Dick answered Betsy Trot- wood, very briefly, with plain common sense, and I should like also to have my answer bear chiefly upon your present and your immediate future. To my thinking there is no more serious period in a young person's life than that which covers the end of his career as a preparatory student and the beginning — say the first two or three months — of his career as a college student. And yet nobody seems to pay much attention to this part of your lives; partly I suppose because in this transition you are **neither lamb nor mutton." You are just now trying to meet the last requirements of 2 the preparatory school in order to receive its recommendations, but you are not college students save by courtesy of the college committee on entrance requirements. While in the preparatory school you have been under the eyes of parent or guardian, and you have not yet successfully got quite free from the figura- tive apron strings, though, I have no doubt, you have tugged at them pretty vigorously from time to time. In spite of the fact that so few people take you seriously, I am glad to say that a couple of years ago Dean Briggs of Harvard published a little book meant to help young people standing where you stand to-night, and it is not a text book either. It is called * 'School, College and Character.'' I can heartily recommend it to you as the best thing of the kind I know of. And when you have read it, I hope you will find it a safe and useful book to put in the hands of your parents. For between you and me the parents need admonition right along here quite as much as do the boys and girls. 3 When you go to college you will enter upon a broader field of opportunity for good — ^and for bad too; you will have much more freedom than you have ever had before; you will have much more temptation than ever before, and, more's the pity, you will have much more opportunity to yield to it. You will probably have more money than before, and more ways of spending it, and if you do not find ways enough to spend it, some of your new-found friends will help you to discover them. Now the all-important thing in this change is your new freedom and the new conditions that accompany it; and the question we are all pro- foundly interested in is how you are going to use it. I implore you to remember that responsibility always goes with all proper freedom. See to it that you use that freedom wisely; use it to the honor of the school under whose recommendations you enter college; use it to the honor of your parents, who watch your every step with a soHcitude more tender and more profound than you can now realize; and use it so as to command your own 4 self-respect both for the time being and hereafter. If it is found when you go to college, though, that you cannot or will not use the freedom of college life with that self-imposed restraint required by a community of high-minded men and women, you will soon be asked to take your liberty else- where. Much of the machinery of a college works more or less automatically. The members of the college faculty have become so used to seeing the process of separation of the sheep from the goats that they are perhaps not so much impressed by it as they ought to be. They come to look at it as the working of nature's laws. Young men and women come: some do their work faithfully and pass on to better things; others postpone and dawdle and drop out and disappear from the college world. For my own part I have never lost and cannot and would not lose sympathy with the freshman; and I am of the opinion that a little advice and sympathy here and there, especially just as they are beginning college life, would save many of them 5 from failure and mortification. Whatever I have to say therefore in the way of advice or suggestion, is said in the hope that it may here and there meet the needs of some of you. I realize, how- ever, that no plan I can devise, or that anybody else can devise, would deliver you from the temptations to do wrong and to go wrong, to fool away your time, to play a little too much. These temptations you must expect, and you must brace yourselves to meet them. If you have been coddled and coaxed thus far toward your education, you may as well learn now as to learn next August or September that the coddling and coaxing are at an end. When you enter college, you will have to do some pretty hard work and you will have to do it without prodding; and if you do not, your sins, in the shape of the committee on scholarship, will find you out with painful promptness. But however willing and anxious you may be to do the right thing, you may not know just how to go about it. You may be taking up entirely new 6 subjects, or you may not be used to writing out notes or to taking down lectures. If you have any doubt about how to take hold, go to your professor and tell him your difficulties and ask his advice and help. Be careful, though, not to miss the first and last recitations or lectures of any of your studies. If you must miss some of them, let it be those near the middle of the course rather than those at either end. This is a matter of more importance than you probably think; at least I find it a mistake made by many students under the impression that if they miss a few recita- tions at first, they can easily make them up later. I should not wonder to find that half of the students dropped out of college had their troubles begin with the missing of a few recitations or lectures at the beginning or end of the term. The big resolution I hope you will all set out with is to do what you know you ought to do, and to do it promptly, no matter how disagreeable it may be. I am sure the Washburn School has not been sugar-coating all the pills you have had to 7 swallow thus far. When you get into college you will find much of the work to be done is real work, and it may be distasteful enough. But as you mean to be real men and real women — people who count for something in the world — I implore you to stick to it; to stand up to it. And at this point — when the question arises whether you are to win or to quit — you will get some light on your own future careers. If you turn coward and run — if you quit just because it is hard, you can write yourself down a **quitter" for the other events of life. I do not mean to imply that when you have work to do you should make it as hard as you can, but I do mean to say that if you are to get much good out of your college course you yourselves must do your own work, and you must not expect your teachers or your neighbors or coaches or ponies to do it for you. Educational hash that has been chopped up fine and mixed with various savory things to make it taste good, or predigested mental food of any kind, 8 is not as healthful as plain meat and bread that require some chewing and develop good sound teeth, a healthy digestion and a strong jaw. Some law of nature requires that we work if we would be heahhy of mind and body. Most of us are kept humping ourselves in order to make a living, but if some of you happen to have been bom of **rich but honest parents," you will have to work hard to overcome the disadvantages of your advantages. If any of you find it difficult to go to college because you have not the necessary money, you may find some compensation in the reflection that the students who have to hustle and save and scrimp and manage to get through, are the ones who get most out of their college experience, and make the most promptly successful and most useful men and women afterwards. Make use of your opportunities, then, as fully as you can, and try to realize that they are opportuni- ties while they are under your hand. If you go to Berkeley do not imagine that better things are to 9 be had at Stanford; if you go to Stanford do not think you could have done better at Berkeley. If you attend a California institution do not imagine that you would be better off at an Eastern college, and if you go to an Eastern college do not imagine that you would have been better off in the West. But wherever you are use your opportunities — **act the living present'' — and do not go grumbling and growling and fault-finding up and down this beauti- ful and bountiful earth. Burn no midnight oil; the half past ten oil is late enough. Try to keep such hours for work and play and sleep as will leave the bloom of youth and health on your cheeks just as long as possible. I would not have you take alarm at this sort of *raw head and bloody bones'' picture I am hold- ing up here to frighten you into being good. I only mean that you should keep in mind the seri- ous side of the business, that is all. For college life is not a night- mare — far from it. It is the joy- ous time of youth; the time to play hard as well as to work hard; the time to sing and laugh and slide 10 down the bannisters as well as the time to pray and ponder. And it is the time for those warm friend- ships that will bless your whole after life. To this end do not for any reason cut yourselves off from the life of the student body. Mix up with your fellow students, get acquainted with them; at- tend your class meetings and the meetings of the student body; interest yourselves in all sorts of stu- dent and college activities. As the boys say on the ball ground, **Get into the game!" Some of you will be asked to join college frater- nities as soon as you get on the campus. I was a fraternity man myself, when in college, and I know what I am talking about when I speak of them. College fraternities are not so good, that is, not quite so good, as some folks — especially those who invite you to join them — will tell you, and they are not so bad as some other folks think them. I have seen young men rushed into a college fraternity without their knowing what kind of men they were casting their lot with, and I have seen those same young men rushed straight on to the bow-wows 11 without slacking their pace. On the other hand I have seen young men of uncertain tendencies braced up and turned out good students and fine men through the influence of the manly associates they found in a college fraternity. I am of the opinion that under proper conditions there is a lot of good to be found in these fraternities, though I do not believe that the sun, moon and stars revolve around them. Joining a fraternity is very like getting married; whether it is a good thing or not depends on how it turns out. There is no invariable rule covering all cases. It is good if it turns out well, and it is bad if it turns out ill. The thing for you to be most careful about in this con- nection is to see that you do not join an organiza- tion that will not be congenial and helpful to you. A serious mistake can often be avoided by taking time to look over the men and making sure that they are such as you ought to associate with intimately during your college life. If you find them, or some of them, men you would not wish to introduce to your mother or sister, flee from 12 them as you would from the black death. I do not thmk it is possible for young men to go through college without temptations to go wrong in many ways. And it is in your associations with other students that you will probably meet most of these temptations. Whether the bad of college life affects you must depend on you your- selves and on the stiffness of your backbones. But though you cannot escape temptations, do not go round hunting for them; they will hunt you, and soon or late they will find you — more's the pity. Only remember the prayer of all mankind to be delivered from them — clean. Have your mind firmly made up that during the first month in college you will be more watchful, more careful and more scrupulous about your conduct than ever before, and you will find it easier to save j'ourself thereafter. For a young man there is no more wholesome influence about a college than the society and friendship of good women. If you attend a co- educational institution treat the ladies in college, 13 not as if they were tom-boys or some other sort of boys, but as ladies should be treated in all civil- ized society, with politeness, consideration and respect. Whether women are better or worse than men, or whether they are better or worse students is not the question; and whether you want them in your college is not going to make any difference. It is proper that men should honor, respect and protect women, and if they do not, they are lower than the beasts of the field. The wives of members of the faculty in most of the colleges of the country are glad to meet and to know and to help the freshmen — ^both men and women — and their doors are always open to you. You should be careful, though, not to put your- selves in the wrong at the outset by waiting for the faculty ladies to call on you or to send you formal invitations. It is quite impossible in an institution where there are more than a thousand students for the faculty ladies to keep up formal relations with the student body. Do not beheve everything you are told — ^by the 14 sophomores. You will hear some of the most remarkable stories about this and that professor. You will be told, for example, that a certain professor is in the habit of flunking a fixed percentage of his students in spite of superior work and excellent examination papers; and that another one tosses up a penny to determine whether a student shall pass or not pass. Of course young folks are fond of picturesque language and extravagant statements, and so long as you regard this sort of chaff as the product of the poetic license of lively imaginations no particular harm will be done. But do not allow it to shake your faith in the common sense and fairness of the instructing body of your college. Some folks would give you the impression that the members of the faculty are the natural bom enemies of students. I tell you that they are your natural born friends. No man would be tolerated for one moment in any self-respecting college faculty who passed or did not pass a student except entirely upon the student's own merits. 15 In general do not trust rumors, but make it a rule to go to headquarters for information. If it is about a matter connected with the record of your work or credits go to the registrar; if it relates to the work in a given subject, go to the professor. If you will do this you will save yourselves a vast amount of unnecessary worry and friction, and you will prevent the growth of those petty misappre- hensions that are often a source of much annoyance in college life. In many colleges we now have a system by which each student has what is called a major professor, under whose guidance he works. This professor is to be your advisor throughout your college course. My advice to every student is to get personally acquainted with his or her major professor. This is an important duty you owe yourselves, but it is one that students usually over- look until about the latter half of their senior year. You should not forget, though, that it is easier for you to remember the face. of one professor than it is for one professor to remember the faces of a 16 thousand students. For this reason your professor may not recognize you the second or even the tenth time he meets you, but you should not regard his failure to recognize you as indifference or neglect on his part, but you should go right on speaking to him, and, if necessary, reintroducing yourself. Your duty is not done when you ask advice of your professor. He can give advice, but he can- not make you follow it; that rests with you alone. And the members of the faculty cannot and will not go out hunting for you with a lasso in order to drag you either into their classes or their offices or their houses. It is so generally understood in most of our colleges that you will call on and get acquainted with your major professor that you will not even be especially invited to do so. You can do just as you please about this matter. In case you do decide to cultivate his acquaintance, how- ever, you will find a certain kind of low comedy fellow-student always at hand who will insinuate that you are trying to **get a pulF' with your major 17 professor, and that you are not yet able to walk alone. Just here be careful that you do the right thing. Certainly the professors are not so feeble- minded but that they can mark your examination papers justly whether they are personally ac- quainted with you or not. If you ask why a professor should wish to get acquainted with you I answer that the only reason he has in the world is that he may help you. Perhaps you do not feel the need of any help; but there are lots of ups and downs in college life, and a pretty long acquaint- ance with it convinces me that a student has much to gain and nothing to lose by a personal acquaintance with his professors. Indeed, one of the most serious objections to the great universities of modem times with their thousands of students, is that it is impossible for the professors and students to come in contact with each other. This can be partly obviated, at least, by students meet- ing and knowing their major professors. Some of you will be called upon at the outset to choose a major subject — the one to which you are 18 to give the greater part of your time while in col- lege, and probably bearing on your proposed calling in life. I am sorry to say that upon this point I can advise you only in very general terms. I am not as enthusiastic a believer in the elective or major subject as some teachers, or rather I do not believe in beginning that sort of specialization as early as do some. But I do believe in it for all people sooner or later. The question is when to allow the student his choice. Some of you may know your tastes and preferences perfectly, but I very much doubt whether all of you do. Now a man can be altogether happy in his work only when his work is to his liking. In choosing a profession or business, therefore, you must follow your own tastes in so far as you know them. If you know your tastes you need no advice; but if you do not know them yet, you should choose a course of study that will allow of your postponing for a year or two the decision in regard to your future calling. I am often asked whether mining is not a promising field for a young man; whether one may 19 not expect to get rich or to get a big salary in the business. Yes indeed! Why, only a few weeks ago a great mining company signed a contract with a mining geologist in this country by which the company agrees to pay him $100,000 a year for ten years. One of my students who probably did not have a single dollar to his name when he graduated, seven years afterwards was worth in the neighborhood of half a million dollars and was partner in one of the most important mining firms in London. But be not deceived. The men who receive these large salaries not only earn them, but they earn a great deal more. If they did not, they could not be employed upon such salaries. Do you imagine for one moment that these men when they were in college squirmed out of their mathematics because mathematics was hard? No. Did they stop studying as soon as they received their diplomas? Indeed no. There is no road along which one can coast all the way through life, or if. there is such a road, I would warn you against traveling it. The road of 20 least moral resistance leads to the penitentiary; the road of least mental resistance leads to the land of woolly-mindedness. If any of you are looking for success without earning it, for food and shelter without paying for it, for the palm of victory without the exertion of winning it, let me commend to you Drummond's chapter on parasitism. In regard to your education in its broadest sense, keep in mind the fact that while it is the end of the race that counts, the successful end is made possible from the beginning. If you do faithful work day by day, if you meet duties and use opportunities as they arise, you need not worry over much about whether your work is irksome or whether it seems small and unimportant. See only that you do what will enable you to win in the end, and that you are guided by right principles. Above all things see that your college education itself does not educate you away from some of the main things in life — away from humanity — away from sympathy with your neighbor, whether he be rich and powerful or poor and humble. 21 v»m ^(hu\ U €tf\Up II BY JOHN C. BRANNER, PH- D. From School to College II BY JOHN C. BRANNER, Ph. D. VICE.PRESfOENT LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY Stanford University Press PREFACE A desire to share our good things with our friends and to preserve for coining classes some clear cut^ wholesome advice^ has culminated in issuing the following address^ which was given by Dr. Branner at the Marker-Hughes' School to the class of 1905. CATHERINE HARKER, ELIZABETH G. HUGHES, Palo Alto, California, From School to College II When I asked a young lady who used to at- tend this school what I should say to you to-day, I received this reply : ** Don't give them advice, and don't talk long." Talk long I shall not ; but how can you expect a college professor, and especially one of my age, to let slip such an op- portunity to unburden his mind of some of its accumulations ? You must not ask it ; it would be flying in the face of nature. This is indeed the period of addresses by college professors. We cannot be expected to say anything new, for this sort of thing has been going on for a long, long time. But, though you must get dreadfully tired of being preached at, this is the last chance the preparatory school will have at you, and very likely you will not hear anything more of the kind until you come up to the uni- I versity, where I may have an opportunity to give you this same advice all over again. When you get through with your university work much kind and useful counsel will be given you about life in the big world beyond, but I shall have done you a greater service if I can persuade you to properly appreciate and use your time and opportunities while you are in col- lege. I am not used to giving advice to young ladies, though ; I never felt that they needed it, and I am still convinced that they do not need it nearly as much as do the young men. But after all, about the only thing the old people have that is worth having is the knowledge gained from their own experience and from the experience of others. This knowledge is the concentration, as it were, of all we know — the savings of a life- time. And these savings can be passed on to you only as counsel in one shape or another. In what I say I shall bear in mind this observation made by Jean Jacques Rousseau * a long time * Confessions, p. 509. 2 ago : that * ^ the duty of the most pure friendship . does not always consist in being agree- able, but in advising for the best. ' ' Hitherto parents and guardians have kept an eye on you to see that you walked uprightly and behaved yourselves becomingly. Now the apron strings are to be broken, or very tightly stretched. You go to the university to measure yourselves with men and women from all parts of the coun- try, and to meet temptations from which you have hitherto been shielded. Advice is apt to vary, too, according to the person who gives it. If you have had any time for reading in the midst of your Latin and Greek and French and German and English and mathe- matics and history and physiology and botany and zoology and music and a few other studies, you have probably read the Letters of a Self-made Merchant to His Son. You will remember that in the first letter the father writes to his son who has just gone away to college, he says : ** Dear Pierrepont : Your Ma got safe back this morn- ing and she wants me to be sure to tell you not 3 to overstudy, and I want to tell you to be sure not to understudy.'* It is to be hoped that Pierrepont took the advice of both his parents. Some students are disposed to study too much, to the great detriment of health of body and mind; while others are disposed to study too little, also to the detriment of body and mind and morals. It is the universal testimony of the professors in all co-educational institutions that the women are more conscientious in their work than the men, and that they are therefore much more lia- ble to overwork. The first piece of advice I have to offer you, therefore, is that you do not over- work. Nothing is to be gained by that sort of thing. I suppose you will, like so many young people, feel that you must get through with your studies, and get out in the busy world. But if you get through with nerves shattered, and health gone beyond remedy, you will have paid more than it is worth for your education. The second bit of advice is like unto the first, and that is to take good care of your health. You 4 can pay too dearly for education quite as cer- tainly as you can pay too dearly for a piece of cloth. And pray do not proceed on the theory that your health is a matter that concerns you alone. It not only concerns your relatives and friends through their affections for you, but soon or late, unless you take proper care of your health, you will become a burden to them instead of a help. I have said that I find young men more in need of advice than young women, but in matters of this kind I believe the women are more reckless than the men. In our quadrangle is a place where, when the weather is not bad, a good many people take a short cut across the corners on the bare ground. On several occasions when it was not raining, but when the ground was muddy, I have seen the students passing this place in groups, and I have been impressed by the fact that most of the young men, with the soles of their shoes fully a quarter of an inch thick, walk the slightly longer distance under the arcades, while the young ladies, with dragging 5 skirts, without overshoes, and with shoe soles as thin as cardboard, walk across the short cut through the mud. Bearing directly on this matter of health I would urge that you impose a rational limit upon your social pleasures. There is no sadder sight than that of young women driving away youth and health of mind and heart by late hours, and by keeping constantly on the nervous stretch and strain in the process known as ^ ^ having a good time.^^ We cannot too severely condemn the course of young men who lead dissipated lives ; but dissipation does not consist solely in exces- sive drinking and smoking. There are excesses of other kinds often indulged in by young women that are quite as sure to dull the moral senses, to dim the sparkle of their eyes, and to make of them faded old women at twenty-five. Do not, I pray you, get the impression that the college professor has no sympathy with the pleasures of the young. As one grows old, if his heart is somewhere near the right spot, he sym- pathizes the more with all the legitimate enjoy- 6 merits of young people. By no means would I have you do without various kinds of play, but see that play does not get the first place in your lives. Late hours at the ball, the reception, the * * spread, * ' the chafing-dish party, or other social function, will cause the roses of youth and health to fade from your cheeks just as promptly as late hours of study or care or sickness ; and once gone they return no more. On the other hand, do not confine your atten- tion too exclusively to your regular university work, but mingle with your fellow students and take some part in student activities. Your inter- ests in such affairs are really quite as great as those of the men. Do not hold yourself aloof from your classmates, and do not, above all, as- sume an air of being superior to matters that are of interest or concern to yourselves, to the stu- dent body, and to the college community. Cul- tivate respect for things that should be respected, and appreciation for the many things that are done for your comfort and welfare, and do not go fault-finding through this joyous period of 7 your lives. President Andrew D. White of Cor- nell University properly expresses it in his auto- biography, written toward the close of a life-long experience as student, professor, and college pres- ident, when he says that ''the most detestable product of college life is the sickly cynic."* The cynic would have us think that he could win all the prizes, take all the honors, and throw all creation quite in the shade if he only chose to do so. But he never does any of these things, and he has the air of thinking none of them worth the doing. Should any one of you ever be tempted to take this detestable attitude, or to admire it in others, please remember this at least : that one is useful in this world not according to what he is able to do, but according to what he does. In your relations to university regulations, try to live up to the spirit of them. If you find a rule requiring you to end a social function at twelve o'clock, be sure that you don't wait for the clock to finish striking twelve before ending it. Bear * Autobiography, I, p. 33. 8 in mind that when people abuse their privileges they are on the high road to lose them altogether. The good you will get out of your college life will come day by day and little by little. Integ- rity, uprightness, truthfulness, unselfishness, gen- tleness, and a fine sense of honor cannot be put upon you like a garment ; these things must grow up within you if they are to be controlling factors in your lives. Have confidence in your teachers. Turn a deaf ear to carping criticism of them. Remember that the most disagreeable people in this world are those who never have a kind word for their fellow men. You are probably not prepared to realize how good an impression a student makes upon his elders by expressing confidence in his instruc- tors. And if you are to get much out of your work as you go along you must have confidence in them. I do not mean to beg the question, however. Professors are human beings just like the rest of the world, and are liable to all the weaknesses of our race ; but the men under whom you must continue your work have been looked 9 over by much more critical persons than you would claim to be. Mr. Muirhead, the author of the British and American *' Baedekers," and a man of wide ob- servation, makes this statement in his * ' America, the Land of Contrasts " :* * ' Among the most searching tests of the state of civilization reached by any country are the character of its roads, its minimizing of noise, and the position of its women.'' We have to confess that our roads are pretty bad, and we are a noisy lot, but our women, we are proud to say, have a position al- together different from and better than that of women in other parts of the world with which I have any acquaintance. Having in mind the condition of so many women in European countries, Mr. Muirhead re- marks the absence in America of * ' the pathetic army of ineffective spinsters clinging apologetic- ally to the skirts of gentility. ' ' But that Ameri- can women have a position better than the women of other countries depends upon the men and __ ID upon the women themselves. Our women have a large variety of interests, and they seem to have followed natural laws in the development of their individuality. I believe that the freedom per- mitted in matters of education is partly responsi- ble for the independence and individuality of the women of this country. Every honorable pro- fession and business is to-day open to them. At your doors is one of the largest benefactions ever bestowed upon mankind, and it is chiefly the work of an American woman. Like so many other women of our time, some of you may be looking for positions of one kind or another shortly after you get through your university work. You will be more successful in this search if you will keep certain matters in view before and after you go to college. One of the main things is for you to devote yourselves to getting a proper and thorough education. If you will do this you are much more likely to get places and to hold them with satisfaction both to yourselves and to your employers. You have much the same interest then that men have in II choosing your studies and in deciding what you will do. When you come to choose a major study in the university, endeavor to follow the natural bent of your mind very much as any one else should do. Geology is about as far from our old- time ideas of what a woman can do as anything can well be. But the professor of geology at Bryn Mawr is a woman, and she is not only a good geologist, but her standing is recognized. by the most exclusive geological organization in this country. I believe it is true of every one that he can do most successfully what his tastes natu- rally lead him to do, for it is only when one works at what he likes that he works best. And this is just as true of a woman as it is of a man. We do not hear as much nowadays as we used to of the accomplishments of women, but we really do think a good deal about them. For an accomplishment is merely excellence in some- thing, and the power to do it well. Every one admires a person who really knows or can do things well, and this applies to the accomplish- ments of women as well as to those of men. It is 12 only necessary to see that the accomplishment is genuine and a part of you, for only by this pro- cess can you hope to make of yourselves good company. There is one accomplishment that I would especially commend to you as becoming in an American woman, and that is the English lan- guage. Good English is a vast deal more im- portant to every one of you than French or Ger- man or any other language, unless indeed you are to live in France or Germany. In this con- nection I implore you, in the name of all you hold sacred, to make as little use as you possibly can of slang. If you have had the misfortune to grow up in an atmosphere of slang, you have not the remotest idea of how it sounds from the mouth of a lady. I have been in parts of the world where women smoke, and chew tobacco, and swear, but I assure you without the slightest ex- aggeration that none of those habits are more offensive than is the use of slang by young women. And aside from the looks or sound of it, the ha- bitual use of slang so demoralizes one's language 13 that the user of it sooner or later loses the ability to speak straightforward and effective English. I make bold to venture even on the grounds of your relations to the men in the university, and for that matter, outside of it, too. Women have to do in this world not alone with their own con- duct, fate and fortunes, but with the conduct, fate and fortunes of men. You sometimes see it stated that a woman can drag a man down to hell. Yes, I dare say that bad women can ; but good women can drag men into heaven, too. Men will accept you at something near your own valuation, and your influence will therefore be determined largely by your self-respect. Encourage in every way, and at all times, formal politeness and courtesy of men toward women. If you will let a man open a door for you he will think better of you, and you will think better of him. If you give him no oppor- tunity to do such trivial things you appear to go on the assumption that he is a boor, and that is not good, either for you or for him. Encour- age men to be considerate of women in all things, to be chivalrous in all things. Chivalry is no mediaeval custom to be discredited and discarded by the practical, sensible, educated women of the twentieth century : chivalry has its roots in some of the best traits of human nature — the protec- tion and honor due w^omen from men. No man and no woman has anything to lose by it ; both have much to gain and profit by it. Encourage in all men what you would have in the men who are nearest and dearest to you. If you will be- lieve them honorable, truthful, and considerate, they will at least try to be honorable, truthful, and considerate. It is quite impossible to tell you all the things you should and should not do, but in addition to the matters already spoken of, I would have you resolve : That you will cultivate the graces that belong to women rather than those that belong to men. That you will not try to do more than you can do well. That you will keep in close touch with your major professor. 15 That you will not miss the first recitations or lectures in any of your studies. That you will give due (and not undue) atten- tion to your dress and personal appearance. That you will use the dictionary and atlas with the greatest freedom. That you will write legibly and speak distinctly. That when you get to be sophomores you will not tease the freshmen. The things I have been speaking of lie mostly near the surface. In the short time at my dis- posal I cannot say much of those deeper and more important matters of character and basal princi- ples, but these I have no doubt have been so im- pressed upon you that further mention just now is unnecessary. I am not forgetting, and I would not have you forget, that ' ' moral development, spiritual discipHne, is the most essential part of education."* As the foundations of our great buildings lie buried deep out of our sight, so be- neath every truly great character lie foundation principles built with infinite toil and pains. Recol- * Stead, p. 175. 16 lect, though, that this is a convenient point in your lives to make good resolutions, and to set out bravely to keep them. Your moral natures have to be looked after quite as certainly as your knowl- edge of science, literature and art. And while no amount of piety will give an uninstructed man an insight into the truths of science, neither can any amount of scientific knowledge make a man upright. As I came down from the city a few days ago I noticed again what has so often impressed me — the oak trees near San Carlos all leaning up the valley toward the southeast. And I said to myself: ^' How much better than any formal ad- dress it would be if those young women could read aright the history of these trees.'' You have seen them, have you not, how they all lean in the same direction? And why? I have heard it suggested that they have been bent over by the violent storm winds of winter. But such is not the case, for the hard winter winds blow in just the opposite direction. The fact is that during the spring and early summer, 17 when the young shoots are growing, gentle winds blow pretty constantly up the valley toward the southeast, and these gentle winds keep the young twigs bent in that direction until they ma- ture and grow rigid. It is not then the violence of the wind and storm that determines their lean- ing, but the gentler breezes that blow during their period of growth and development. So it must be with you : the gentle winds that blow in your youth during your years of mental and spiritual development will determine which way you must lean all through Hfe, and which way you will fall in death. 1 8 From School to College III By John C. Branner, Ph. D. FROM SCHOOL TO COLLEGE III BY John C. Branner, Ph. D. Acting President Leland Stanford Junior University STANFORD UNIVERSITY / PRESS An address to the students of Stanford University delivered in the Assembly Hall, September 6, 1905 From School to College III Near the beginning of the college year it is the custom for our President to welcome the entering class, and to point out to students who have not quite got their bearings some of the things they ^e expected to do and some of the things they are expected not to do — here and hereabout. In the absence of our honored President it be- conies my duty to occupy a part of this hour. W^hat I shall say, however, is not addressed to new students alone, but to the older ones as vdl. I shall not trouble you with anything yery deep or very long. We have the pleasure of welcoming to-day g' e largest class that has ever entered Stanford niversity. With apologies to our Texas friends, we Icnow that there is not much virtue in mere size, but it is nevertheless pleasant to know that we have more students and better students this year than ever before ; that we have more professors and better professors than ever before ; that we have more and better equipment; and that additional professors and additional equipment will be provided for us by the trustees just as fast as the income of the uni- versity will permit. And now, as it would not be altogether re- spectful to speak to the freshmen before saying a word to the sophomores, allow me first to ad- dress a word to the latter. Gentlemen of the sophomore class, and any others of the sophomoric way of seeing things : — I beg to remind you that if this university stands for any one thing more than another it is the elective system. In this connection I want to remind those of you who appear to lack con- fidence in this system, that if a freshman does not elect a bath-tub out of regulation hours, the bath-tub must not be thrust upon him. To the sophomores as such that is all I have to say. 6 Ladies and gentlemen of the entering class : — I cannot help regretting that I could not have talked to you a month ago, or at least two weeks ago, before you entered the university. You are now already launched ; fortunately most of you are stepping off in your new surroundings and doing your new work as you ought to da it ; unfortunately some of you have landed on your heads instead of on your feet, some of you have fallen in with the wrong set, some of you have already missed the first two or three recitations, and the machinery over in the Registrar's office will soon be over-familiar with your name — for a brief period only. But let us make the best we can of it, and let us try to avoid in the future mistakes that are liable to be com- mitted at any point along the way. The first suggestion I wish to make to you in your new surroundings is this : see to it that your mind runs your body. During the Span- ish-American war I stumbled upon an out-of-the- way newspaper containing a letter written home by a country boy who had enlisted in the navy, and who was under fire for the first time in the bat- tle of Santiago. He naively stated that he found great difficulty in making his feet go where his head meant to have them go. Now many oi you will have this same kind of a difficulty here in col- lege. This is not a place where you can hide from temptation. The same old sins will beset you here, and the chances are that many new temptations will find you. If you come to col- lege disposed to let your wayward feet go where and when they please they will soon lead you oflT the campus to stay. For this reason, and for other reasons, I beg you to have your minds made up that your heads shall direct your feet and your body and your lives. My second suggestion is very Uke unto the first : that you impose upon yourselves the setf- restraint that every Christian gentleman and gentlewoman must exercise. Most of you upon entering the university find yourselves with more fi-eedom than you have ever had before. Now it is a fundamental principle of every democratic government that with free- 8 dom goes responsibility, and that responsibility implies and necessitates self-restraint. With the freedom allowed you in this institution the re- sponsibility of your conduct rests almost entirely in your own hands. But unless you exercise self-restraint and use your freedom wisely, you will soon receive a cordial invitation that you cannot very well decline, to go elsewhere. Do not get the idea, however, that your path- way is entirely covered with pit-falls and stum- bling blocks. You will find, as most of you have already found, that everybody is your friend and wishes to help you along. And every one wants to have confidence in you, and will have confidence in you just as far as you will allow it. Seek good advice and follow it. Revise an old saw to run in this fashion : '* Do as you are^ told — by your major professor.'* I lay stress on the major professor for the reason that we major professors, especially in the engineering courses, have seen students become almost hope- lessly entangled in their studies by following the advice of various and several of their student friends. Student advice about which studies to take and which not to take is likely to lead to your undoing. I do not mean to question the kind intentions of these students, but it generally happens that the professor sees the end of a student's course from the beginning, while your student friend is commonly concerned with only a part of it. A friend of mine once applied to Louis Agas- siz for the privilege of being his special student. Agassiz told him that he would accept him only on the condition that he should do as he was directed. Our system of major professors pro- vides for each one of you a man to help and advise and guide you just as Agassiz guided his students, and, for one, I must confess that I often feel like saying to students, **I accept you on condition that you do as you are told. ' * It seems reasonable to assume that you have come here for the purpose of placing yourselves under the instruction and guidance of the mem- bers of the faculty of this university. It is the ID duty and pleasure of your major professors to instruct and guide you, and you are expected and urged to go to them with all your troubles. In some colleges it is the custom to have a dean, but here we have, in practice, a large number of deans. And if it happens that you do not find one exactly to your liking. Professor Putnam has kindly consented to act as general advisor or as a sort of dean at large. These professors are all men in whom you can and ought to have confidence. Indeed they must have your confidence, for you cannot hope to make a success of your work here or anywhere else unless you have confidence in your instructors. Whatever you may make your major subject, I want to commend to every one of you the daily use and cultivation of the English language. To that end speak the best English you can at all times. I would not have you a lot of affected prigs, but neither would I have you cultivate the conversational style of a Bowery tough. A few days ago I heard this conversation between a professor and a new student : II * ' Have you had Latin }" * * Yeawp. ' ' ; * * Have you had any chemistry ? ' * * * Nawp.*^* Beyond this I cannot undertake to report the young man^s replies; it is enough to say that they were reeking with slang, and that he not only could not speak presentable English, but to a stranger his language was positively offensive. Just imagine, if you please, a young man, able and honest, and otherwise competent, offering his services to a prospective employer in such language. Young men, an offensive habit of tongue is very hard to get rid of, and it is quite as sure to stand in your way to esteem and success as any other offensive habit. Do not spend much time looking for the way of least resistance. There is no concealing the fact that there is a lot of hard work, even of drudgery, in the life of every student who forms the habit of staying in the university. If any of you come here with the idea that the university is somehow going to enable you to dodge the hard work of life, you are making a big mistake. 12 The university is not here to educate you above your work, or below your work, or around your work, but it is here to educate you squarely into the midst of it, whatever and wherever it may be. As early as possible then reconcile your- selves to work and to drudgery, for that is the common lot of all successful men and women. Your work must seem dull to you at times, even the most interesting of it, and unless you accus- tom yourselves to standing up to it and doing it whether it be agreeable or not, you cannot ex- pect to get through with your college work suc- cessfully, and you certainly will not get through with the other work of life successfully. Most of the men and women who graduate here look about as their college lives draw to a dose to find employment out in the big world beyond. It is no rare thing to see a young man at this period of his life casting about for what he is pleased to call a **puir* to get a desirable place. Let me give you this fair warning on that sub- ject : the best help, the most immediate help 13 and almost the only trustworthy help you can get toward place and position beyond your col- lege life is good work and a good reputation to your credit here in the university. For the reputation established by you while in college will justly stick to you longer than that made at any other period of your lives. Respect the property of the university. These things, whether they are fences or kitchen chairs or expensive compound microscopes — are all yours for your service, but they are not yours to break down, to batter and bruise and destroy. They are given to you in trust for the use of fu- ture students, and it is expected that you will pass them along in as good condition as possible. When you see things out of place or under foot, pick them up and put them where they be- long and lend a helping hand in taking care of them. Do not imagine for a moment that we have no sympathy with the happy-go-lucky dispositions of young people. Indeed we probably have too much rather than too little ; but we also think 14 that there is plenty of fun to be had in the world without breaking up the furniture to get it. I want to say a word to you in regard to habits, especially in regard to those that you have not yet acquired. Habits are parts of a man — parts of his personality — and help to make him strong or weak, attractive or otherwise. If the habits you form do not make you stronger they make you weaker, and should be guarded against just as you guard against any other dan- gerous disease of mind or body. It therefore behooves you to avoid pernicious habits and to cultivate good ones. If you haven't force of character to *'keep training rules" your techni- cal education will go for little. If you do not smoke, postpone acquiring the habit until you are through college at least. If you already have the habit, be open and above- board about it. I would rather have a student smoke two cigars at a time than to see him thrust his cigar behind his back when he meets his father or his major professor. In connection with this subject of habit I want 15 to lay some stress upon the habit of spending money as practiced nowadays in college. For- tunately for many of you the problem of ex- penses is already solved, and you are to be con- gratulated ; but others of you are so unfortunate as to be more fortunate. You have only to write to indulgent parents for more money to pay for books, or for fees, or for a board-bill, and it comes. This money is spent in some cases as if you were the sons and daughters — not of fru- gal American parents, but of nabobs and princes. And not only is this money poured out for ex- travagant dress, expensive furniture, superabun- dant livery rigs, spreads, dances, card-parties and all the accompaniments of college high-life, but bills are run up with liverymen and trades- men without due regard to when and how they are to be paid. Now I wish to say in connection with such ir- regularities, and for the matter of that I may say in regard to nearly all the irregularities of student life, that I do not believe in the evil intentions of young people. When such things happen, it is i6 generally because those who do them are good- natured and easy-going. But if those of you who are disposed to be over free with your money will look about you among your fellow students, I am confident that you will see reasons enough to reconcile you to leading a simpler sort of life. To the fraternity and sorority people generally I beg to offer a word of kindly-meant advice in this connection. Young ladies and young gen^ tlemen, the lives that many of you are leading, are, in my opinion, altogether too strenuous. I am putting it very mildly. Such devotion to pleasure-seeking is not in keeping with the spirit or purposes of university education in this coun- try, and it is not good for you either as organi* zations or as individuals. Fraternity life has come to be vastly more ex* pensive than is either necessary or reasonable, aind this expensiveness is kept up, not by the legitimate requirements of the organizations, but by childish rivalries in display. And in some instances while you are here spending enough X7 money to support an ordinary family, back there at home are father and mother working early and late, saving and denying themselves in or- der to pay for these indulgences of yours. If you will look at this matter soberly I am sure you will agree with me that the best there is in college fraternity life is friendship and fellow- ship based on personality, character, and ac- quirements, and these are neither expensive nor undemocratic. I do not mean to imply that ex- travagance is confined to the fraternities and so- rorities — not by any manner of means. If I were at all disposed to think so I should only have to look toward college athletics to be com- pelled to enlarge my views on the subject. And I would also have it distinctly understood that I do not believe, and I do not mean to imply, that extravagance is especially characteristic of stu- dent life in this university. But I do mean to say that it is the business of our students and of our faculty to deal with it in so far as it is prac- ticed on our own campus. Perhaps some of you think that so long as you i8 are spending your own money, these matters are no affair of ours. With that view I cannot agree. I believe in regard to your manner of living that whatever offends the self-respect of men and women of slender means is unwhole- some, undemocratic and lacking in that gener- osity that belongs naturally to youth. Aside from the demoralizing effects of extravagant liv- ing among students, habits of extravagance car- ried from college into after-life are almost sure to lead to defeat. Modern business is carried on with a view to economy of management, and many of our largest and most remunerative en- terprises are made so only through the practice of the strictest economy. Young women and young men, extravagance is vulgar ; it is bad form, bad policy, bad man- ners and bad morals. It is demoralizing to you personally, unjust to your parents, offensive to your fellow students, and it hardens against you and against young people generally the hearts of men and women who would otherwise be bene- factors of mankind. 19 Of course I know quite well that you are not altogether responsible for all these things ; yoi;i are simply following the fashion. Customs spring up here and there and spread over the country like high collars or baggy trousers. When these matters are as harmless as the cut of your clothes we shall not concern ourselves about them, but when they threaten to comprot mise or in any way endanger the future of the young people entrusted to us, it behooves us to look at them more seriously. In regard to the fraternity question generally^ I venture to suggest to new students that you should *' view with alarm" any organization that would pledge you before you come on the cai^- pus, or that drags you out of the train before you reach Palo ^\tq in order to rush you intp ^ college fraternity before yoi; hfive ^ chance tp get a gfood square look at it. A fraternity that vfill not bear close inspection, or an acquaintj^nqe pf six months, is ^ good one to keep out of. And if by apy mischance you should find yourself in a fraternity niade up, to any consider? 20 able extent, of slangy, foul-mouthed or foul- minded men whom you would not like to intro- duce to your mother or your sister, your safest course is to sever your connection with it. There are many other matters on which I should like to lay some stress, but the time at my disposal will only allow me to give them to you in a concentrated form. Do faithful work day by day, and don't de- pend upon the pernicious habit of cramming. If you are not called upon to recite each day, work just as if you were called upon, for a day of reckoning must come for every one who shirks. Write your names and addresses in your books and note-books, so that in case they get lost they can be returned to you by the finder. Don't scatter waste-paper or other litter about the quadrangle or the grounds. If the place is to be kept in order, men have to be paid out of university funds to pick up such litter, and there is just so much less money for something useful. Don' t believe all the rumors that float about ; 21 and when you want information go to headquar- ters for it. Write legibly and speak distinctly ; if you don't know how, make haste to learn. Make some use of the good advice bestowed upon you by your instructors. Cultivate a willingness to do without that which you cannot pay for. Never go to a place that requires you to ex- plain why you were there. Avoid short cuts in your education. Don't smoke in the quadrangle. Don' t play too much. Remember these things : That you can find no better company than that of good women, and none worse than that of bad ones. That as a rule it requires more backbone and more pluck to do the right thing than to do the wrong one. That nothing gets done by the process of postponement. To the ladies especially I would make these suggestions : 22 Inasmuch as the human body can bear only a limited amount of work and excitement, I urge you not to study too much, and not to lead too strenuous a social life. Encourage our young men to be courteous and considerate of women. When the walks are wet wear overshoes. Don't use slang. Finally, it is hardly to be expected in so large a student body as we now have that there will not be some who will disappoint us. But on the whole I have never seen anywhere, either in this country or in any other country, a more manly, more earnest, more satisfactory or in any sense a finer body of students than we have here. And, ladies and gentlemen of the entering class, in extending to you, in the name of the faculty, a warm welcome, I ask that you do your part in keeping up, and if possible in improving, the ex- isting standards of manhood and womanhood and scholarship already in existence here at Stanford University. 23 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY BERKELEY Return to desk from which borrowed. This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. LD 21-100m-9,'47(A5702sl6)476 291042 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY v< r/-'