Stanford University - Quad Yearbook (Palo Alto, CA)

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Founders. LELAND STANFORD. JANE LATHROP STANFORD. Boarb of trustees. The Hon. Francis E. Spencer, Chairman....................San Jose. The Hon. Charles Goodall..............................San Francisco. The Hon. Alfred L. Tubbs .............................San Francisco. Col. Charles F. Crocker...............................San Francisco. Mr. Timothy Hopkins...................................San Francisco. The Hon. Henry L. Dodge...............................San Francisco. Mr. Irving M. Scott...................................San Francisco. Dr. Harvey W. Harkness................................San Francisco. The Hon. Horace Davis .... San Francisco. The Hon. John Boggs.......................................Colusa. The Hon. T. B. McFarland..............................Sacramento. The Hon. Isaac S. Belcher.............................San Francisco. The Hon. George E. Gray...............................San Francisco. The Hon. Nathan W. Spaulding...........................Oakland. The Hon. William M. Stewart......................Virginia City, Nev. The Hon. Stephen J. Field.........................Washington, D. C. The Rev. Horatio Stebbins, D. D.......................San Francisco. Mr. Joseph D. Grant...................................San Francisco. Mr. S. F. Leib.............. ............................San Jose. Mr. Leon Sloss........................................San Francisco. Dr. Edward R. Taylor..................................San Francisco. Mr. Thomas Welton Stanford.....................Melbourne, Australia. Mr. Frank Miller....................................... Sacramento. Mr. Charles G. Lathrop................................San Francisco. Herbert C. Nash, Secretary. • Died Juue ai, 1893. 18

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ideals have not risen in value. The freedom of the student to choose brings him capacity to choose. The willingness of the college to meet all sorts of intellectual needs calls to its walls all kinds and conditions of men to which it is capable of extending help. Its influence is felt in the demand for better teachers. Incompetent, narrow-minded, and fossilized men no longer find their victim in the student. Freedom to choose his teachers gives the student the opportunity to escape the bigot and the martinet. The essence of higher education lies in the character and influence of the teacher. The great teacher has freedom of development only when he is brought face to face with students who have come to him of their own accord. The teacher feels a tremendous incentive to good work when he deals with students who have sought him for love of him or for love of his chosen subject. A great teacher never fails to leave a great mark on every youth with whom he comes in contact. Only in freedom are great teachers possible. In the elective system as developed at Harvard and elsewhere, there is one element of weakness. Its system permits undue scattering. It allows the student to flit from one subject to another, acquiring versatility without real training. This defect the specialty system proposes to remedy. The student is allowed perfect freedom of choice, but he must choose one subject to be thorough in. In some one line, he must have knowledge of the most substantial kind. He must come to know the value of truth and how truth is separated from error. This thorough knowledge of some specialty gives him a base line by which all other attainments can be measured. There is no value in narrowness, but there is a great value in early specialization. It has the same value as early honesty—or early morality. It sets the habit of thoroughness, and of genuineness in intellectual processes. The critical time in the life of the student comes when he leaves the hot-bed of the university for the uninterested and unintellectual environment of the world. If he have not a definite intellectual purpose and a definite mission in life, he will do as the world does. He will renounce, with sorrow for it, his early visions, and the intellectual life will soon know him no more. The essential value of special knowledge is in its inspiration. Its impulse carries the student beyond this danger point. Once a scholar, always a scholar. Give him a message to speak to other men, and when he leaves your care you need fear for him not the world nor the flesh nor the devil.

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