Stanford University - Quad Yearbook (Palo Alto, CA)

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Stanford Quad 1903 r ' — ) 1 1 . J ' :: wm SHfi fr.j£jXisAl » i Our Growing Traditions It is hallowed by i associations it is ours tt i traditions ; it is hampered by none. . . . nake. — President Jordan ' s Inaugural, 1S91. RADITION purports to be either unwritten history or unwritten law. Plain history is the slave of verifiable fact ; tradition is a growth, the child indeed of fact, but not subject to reincarnation at the hands of later and contrary record. If tradition has grown wings when a corrected biology says it ought to have grown arms, wings they must nevertheless remain. Plain law is imposed from without ; tradition is imposed from within, and whether it conflict with the former or not, is hallowing or ham- pering, it is implicitly received. The pub- lications of a university set it forth as it is intellectually (or imaginatively) conceived by its managers, and expound the codes by which it is officially governed. The traditions of a university reveal its inner history and the informing spirit which conditions its whole existence. Traditions hallow when they deal with stirring and generous exploits, and when they enforce the spirit of a wise letter ; traditions hamper when they deal with the pathology of the past, and when they stand opposed to orderly progress. Wise traditions are of more value to a university than book- fuls of wise statutes ; foolish traditions are harder to combat than the most formidable opposition. One thing we shall need to bear in mind on the threshold, and that is that the University had a past before it ever began. Some historical

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tendencies, its customs. The power of precedent will cause to be repeated Stanford over and over again everything that we do — our errors as well as our Quad wisdom. It becomes us, then, to begin the work modestly, as under the 1903 eye of the coming ages. We must lay the foundations broad and firm, so as to give full support to whatever edifice the future may build. Ours is the humbler task but not the least in importance, and our work will not be in vain if all we do is done in sincerity. As sound as the rocks from which these walls are hewn should be the work of every teacher who comes within them. To the extent that this is true will the University be successful. It was the hope of these early days that students would learn at Stanford to think for themselves, and to know for themselves what really is. The teachers should teach the value of truth to their students by showing that they value it themselves. In like manner right living they should teach by right examples. Whatever its form, or its organization, or its pretensions, the character of the university is fixed by the men who teach. ' ' Strong men make universities strong. A great man never fails to leave a great mark on every youth with whom he comes in contact. Too much emphasis cannot be laid on this : That the real purpose of the uni- versity organization is to produce a university atmosphere — such an atmosphere as gathered itself around Arnold at Rugby, around Dollinger at Munich, around Liniueus at Upsala, around Agassiz at Cambridge, around Andrew D. White at Ithaca, around all great teachers everywhere. Though the work of the teachers make the university, beauty and fitness are great forces in education. We rejoiced then, as we rejoice today, in the beauty of Palo Alto. The student has no need for luxury. Plain living has ever gone with high thinking. But grace and fitness have an educative value too often forgotten. These long corridors with their stately arches, these circles of waving palms, will have their part in the student ' s training as surely as the chemical laboratory or the seminary- room. Each stone in the Quadrangle shall teach its lesson of grace and genuineness, and this Valley of Santa Clara shall occupy a warm place in every student ' s heart. Pictures of this fair region will cling to his memory. He will not forget the fine waves of our two mountain ranges, overarched with a soft blue Grecian sky, nor the ancient oak trees, nor the gently sloping fields, changing from vivid green to richest yellow, as the seasons change. All these and a hundred other things which each one will find out for himself, shall fill his mind with bright pictures, never to be rubbed out in the wear of life. Thus in the character of every student shall be left some imperishable trace of the beauty of Palo Alto. David Starr Jordan. 13

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growths we shall find running far back of that natal day in October, 1891. Stanford And in that morning hour when the Pioneer Class began to recover from Quad the bewilderment of being born and set to work scattering the seeds of 1903 tradition with all its original freshness, dash, and generosity, already — to call to our aid, for the moment, a more serviceable metaphor — already the traditions of Harvard, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Indiana, and the Uni- versity of the Pacific were bu mping against each other all over the Quad- rangle. There are those who maintain that the Pioneers quickly neutralized this disadvantage by a forcing process all their own. And though we shall doubtless find that of fifty seeds she often brought but one to bear, a goodly number of lusty plants will exude the Pioneer aroma. But whatever their origins, here they are exposed to view. The history of the University, as it reposes in the archives of the Business Office, is doubtless prosaic enough. But, as gathered up into tradition and centered around the personalities of Peter Coutts, Bert Fesler, Dr. Jordan, Uncle John, the Resident Architect, and hundreds of other notables, Pioneers and their successors, it has about it the very aroma of the gods. The tradition (not history) of that first Berkeley reception, where the raw newcomers appeared in street costumes, shocking beyond hope of recovery their swallow-tailed hosts, is of the very essence of the picturesque . The tradition that the presiding officer may himself make a motion and declare it seconded, put to vote, and carried, without a peep from the attending members, shows the pure frolicsomeness of our winds of freedom. Those mechanically active faculty receptions along the unadorned Row surely began the traditions of social oneness and freedom which enshrine the University. The slummy smells apportioned to the Camp and the blue wreaths and Mayfield bottles conjured up to accompany Encina conversation — here is the genesis (and the hard dig- ging) which has had such blossoming in our literary traditions. What a fine, bold growth is this, that all Chaparral editors must be of heroic mold, taking their life in their hands as they venture fortnightly out to the very rim of the faculty volcano ! And as an example of a hundred hardy plants, known to every student, yet of unknown planting, pushing up through the stoniest soil, blighted by no neglect, never trampled out of existence, witness the persistent ten-hour tradition, with its raven- like croaking through every Freshman transom. On the whole, then, we may replace the soil and close our garden door with the feeling that these healthy, vigorous plants shall conserve the University ideals of scholarship, of highmindedness, of loyalty, of confidence, of hearty cooperation in all that builds up the men and women who come within our gates. O. L. E. ' 5