A GREAT UNIVERSITY.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXV, Issue 4254, 3 July 1895, Page 5

A GREAT UNIVERSITY.

The late Senator Stanford, of California, who died in June of last year, had attained to great wealth. It was estimated that be was worth 35,000,000d01, say 7^ millions sterling. With some portion of these vast riches he founded and richly endowed the Leland Stanford Junior University, located near the City of San Francisco. The last letter dictated by the Senator to his secretary was addressed to the president of the University, and expressed at some length— the letter filled in small type two columns of a large newspaper— his wishes as to the future of the institution he had set up, and which will perpetuate his memory during many generations. Among the wishes so expressed was the following : — In this institution I desire that the students shall be made to appreciate the evil consequences of intemperance, and its economic consequences. There are probably in California to-day more adult males engaged in selling distilled liquers than there are in tilling the soil, and I am satisfied that, take the country at large, what with the waste of time of the numbers of people engaged in the selling and the c onsequent waste by the consumers, there is a loss to the country in general fully equal to 25 per cent, of the power of production. I want the education of students to be such as shall give them a realising sense of the importance of temperance. Further on in his letter he said :— ' Palo Alto is one of the most delightful locations in California, take it all in all, and it has a charm ing climate for health. I hope to see thousands of students there. The grounds will become very valuable to the institution for homes. A tract of land will be occupied by residences almost exclusively. We have provided that there shall | ntver be any saloons on the premises. Of those whom he expected to be benefited by the University, and of the social advantages he hoped to flow from it, the Senator wrote thus : — As the University is located so near the city of San Francisco, I expect that many of the children of that city will attend the school, and I hope that as the population increases we shall have a complete system of education from the kindergarten school up. I want to lay out as much as necessary of the grounds, so that they can be occupied from time to time by families which may come there to have their homes because of the social and educational advantages. The ground will be for rent ; it cannot be sold ; it is inalienable. I will want to regulate the style of the buildings, so that while they will be elegant they will never be extravagant. I want the standard of social life to be not according to wealth, but to depend upon manhood and womanhood. The few very rich can get their education anywhere. They will lie welcome to this institution if they come, but the object is more particularly to reach the multitude— those people who have to consider the expenditure of every dollar. It is an exceedingly healthy locality. The students can stay four or five years, get their education, and leave the University strong in body. I think the climate cannot be excelled anywhere in California. The place feels the influence of the ocean breeze, but never so strongly as to make it disagreeable. The trees all grow up straight there ; they do not show the steady direction of the wind as they do in San Francisco. The hope of this institution is to take care even of orphans. Orphans may be sent to it and provided for comfortably, and they will be well looked after. We intend to have free scholarships, so that those who are really poor, if their parents have done something worthy or if they themselves shall have proved the best scholars in their districts, may come in. I do not want them to come in any sense as paupers, but I want them to feel that they have a right to come there free because of something in their circumstances, and to feel that they have earned the right, or their parents have earned it, or because the county may have recommended the case on some supposed merit. Then, as far as possible, in the cultivation of the place and in the use of the machinery, they shall have- an opportunity to earn money to help them through their education. I want every useful calling, as far as possible and practicable, taught there, and one of tho first things we shall do is to put up a machine shop. We see our power of production to-day many fold beyond what it was a hundred years ago. The comforts and elegances now so largely open to the industrious of the world are due to the fact of our increase in inventions, and, appreciating their immense importance, we think of having this machine shop where inventions may be carried out. The anticipations of Senator Stanford as to the future of his University, and specially of the machine shop, were large and comprehensive. He said : — Of course regulations will have to be adopted by the trustees so as not to make any mistake. There must be someone competent to judge whether the invention is really new or not, and whether it is of value. It will be a department to encourage inventions, which mean additional production. I hope to have this institution on such a scale that not only will we have the postgraduates from other colleges, but men of science and men prosecuting original investigations from all over the world. We shall have kindergarten schools, and we shall teach little children all the way up to the most advanced departments of learning. What marks a civilised man from the savage is his intelligence, whether it is shown m the comforts and elegances of life or in moral and religious development. Unsectarian religious teaching is to be provided for ; there is to be a department for music and one for painting. Science is also to be cultivated, and accommodated to the mechanical arts and general culture. It is intended also that in time medicine and law shall be taught. Senator Stanford said : — We waut the people instructed in the law, for with the law rests the science of government, and we have provided in pur articles of endowment for education in political science, and have provided that tho text in government shall be the Declaration of Independence. The great truths of tho declaration, if properly understood and lived up to, would prevent anything like oppression. They would secure every one in his rights of liberty and property and the right to be happy. I think, if it could be adhered to as a (Jovernmeut principle by the nations of the oarth, there would be no more wars. j The grand institution founded and endowed by Senator Stanford, if conducted by the trustees in harmony with the ideas of its founder, cannot fail to exercise a powerful influence for good on the future of his country. Would that many other rich men would go and do likewise !