Stanford University - Quad Yearbook (Palo Alto, CA)

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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

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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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Deed of Grant Jane Lathrop Stanford to tHe Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University