Stanford University - Quad Yearbook (Palo Alto, CA)

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Stanford Quad 1904 iPTfTC Traditions After Twenty Years HE several thousand iM-cshmen of A. D. 1891 who were denied the good fortune of being admitted to Stanford University did not differ very much, considered as the raw material of human beings, from the luckv Four Hundred who were welcomed to the untrodden corri- dors and fascinating arcades of the Inner Quadrangle, and to the candle-lighted recesses of Encina and Roble, during those never-to-be-forgotten natal days. The applicants who knocked at the doors of Stanford, of JNIichigan, of Cornell, even of Harvard, ])resented essentially the same combination of awestruck, moonstruck, tongue-tied sensibilitv, of buov- ant optimism, of the pure wine of ambition, of self-reliance, of preter- natural sophistication. H there were dift ' erences these favored Stan- ford in the matter of general competency and practical equipment at the expense of rigid school training. Stanford Chemistry was certainly very like Harvard Chemistry, and there was at Palo Alto no speciallv trade-marked History, or Latin, or Engineering. But here likeness ceases. Not longer than a day or two was the Harvard Freshman permitted to remain under the delusion that the earth was his and he its center. Verv shortlv and verv devoutlv he

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Baccalaureate Hymn Stanford Quad 1904 Lo, now the fleets are gathered, the new spring breeze runs free, To-day the shore and love and song — to-morrow for the sea ; For the five wide oceans beckon and the winds of the trader blow ; The ghosts of your fate they beckon, and the voyagers gather and go. Thou Captain of the flying sails, thou Eye that seest far, Thou Pilot, though the long course run high as the picket-star, Thou who hast heard our murmurs as we faltered on the way, Grace yet again for all of these that sail the seas to-day. For the fool that never sought thee, for the fool that held apart, The fool that marred thine image, and the fool that shut his heart; Thou knowest, Lord, how weak we are, how low and poor our way. But guide their course in havens safe who sail the seas to-day. For Thou hast seen us, Captain, when we drank the wells of truth, When we called unto the Giver out of groping, sightless youth. When soul to soul we spoke alone, when the tides of life welled up, And sparkling clear the new, sweet wine rose brimming in the cup. Thine was the longing all divine that filled the least of these When from this sheltered cove he saw the course across the seas. And strong in youth the least of these rises and goes to-day, Sure, though he never knew Thee, that Thou guidest on the way. Song of the fide in the sliallozvs, and glint of the z ' aves in the sun. And the sail szcells out and the sea-birds cry, and the rest in the harbor is done. For the zcide, zvhite oceans beckon, and the zi ' inds of the trader blozi. ' , The gliosis of your fate they beckon — and it ' s time that the children go. —Will H. Irzcnii. 19

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must have come to wish for the blessed oblivion of not being remem- Stanford bered. His special enthusiasms were promptl}- suppressed. The Quad skip in his walk and the teeming fruitfulness of his l)rain, conditions 1904 which portended genius in his home circle, were now his undoing. By a rough but elTective treatment he was presently whipped and disci- plined into shape until he became boisterous or studious, enthusiastic or contemplative in the prescribed Harvard fashion. The faculty he found fixed in its orbit, not in the least disturbed by his appearance, not modified by his desires or ambitions or revolutionary ideas. The Uni- versity machinery appeared not to care a rap for anything he thought or did. It observed him and presently labeled him, and he sank or swam according to his degree of conformity to the Harvard standard. Behind the Harvard of 1891 were more than two hundred and fifty vears of history making and tradition making. All the momentum of this force was turned upon the Freshman, for his training, his develop- ment, his regeneration. The result was that he presently acquired the Harvard gait, the Harvard clothes, the Harvard attitude, the Harvard vocabulary, the Harvard learning, and in due course of time was graduated and went out into the world with the everywhere recogniz- able Harvard stamp upon him. For the Stanford Freshman there was no model to which he was predetermined to be conformed. It would be untrue to assume that there were not historical and traditional forces shaping and condition- ing the new university which had been laid oft ' on the Palo Alto Farm. The charter, the founders, the faculty, American university ideals — all these were such forces. But they were in the background. They were concretely undiscovered. Everywhere was a virgin soil. Every- thing had to be discovered ; everything newly formed. There was nothing that was not fluid, nothing that in its detail might not be dif- ferent, no problem for which a new solution might not be sought. The faculty was„ not fixed in any orbit. It had not laid down any precedents. There were no older students already fitted into academic grooves and ready to treat with supercilious scorn any fresh enthusiasm or innovat- ing idea. From college, from high school, from machine shop, from whatever outlving district the student came he was caught up into the intoxication of new beginnings. There were no college papers, no class organizations, no athletics, no musical clubs, no fraternities, no wearers of the Cardinal and no Cardinal to wear, no college heroes, no politicians nor poets nor litterateurs. Zion. Carolus Ager, Shirley Baker. Chappie — not one of these redoubtable names, shouted from the