Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 75.djvu/163

Rh 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 victory. 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 forget. 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, Indiana, 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 property 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 be spared, no pains to be avoided, in bringing this university to the highest possible effectiveness.

In all this Mrs. Stanford was most deeply interested, supporting his purposes, guarding his strength, alert at every point, and always in the 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 property 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 perhaps as well of the final success.