"The biographer of Leland Stanford will have to tell the fascinating story of a career almost matchless in the splendor of its incidents. It was partly due to the circumstances of his time, but chiefly due to the largeness and boldness of his nature, that this plain, simple man succeeded in cutting so broad a swath. He lived at the top of his possibilities." Thus wrote Dr. Albert Shaw in the Review of Reviews, August, 1893.

Leland Stanford, farmer-boy, lawyer, railroad builder, governor, United States Senator, and munificent giver, was born at Watervliet, N.Y., eight miles from Albany, March 9, 1824. He was the fourth son in a family of seven sons and one daughter, the latter dying in infancy.

His father, Josiah Stanford, was a native of Massachusetts, but moved with his parents to the State of New York when he was a boy. He became a successful farmer, calling his farm by the attractive name of Elm Grove. He had the energy and industry which it seems Leland inherited. He built roads and bridges in the neighborhood, and was an earnest advocate of DeWitt Clinton's scheme of the Erie Canal, connecting the great lakes with New York City by way of the Hudson River.

"Gouverneur Morris had first suggested the Erie Canal in 1777," says T. W. Higginson, "and Washington had indeed proposed a system of such waterways in 1774. But the first actual work of this kind in the United States was that dug around Turner's Falls in Massachusetts soon after 1792. In 1803 DeWitt Clinton again proposed the Erie Canal. It was begun in 1817, and opened July 4, 1825, being cut mainly through a wilderness. The effect produced on public opinion was absolutely startling. When men found that the time from Albany to Buffalo was reduced one-half, and that the freight on a ton of merchandise was cut down from $100 to $10, and ultimately to $3, similar enterprises sprang into being everywhere."

LELAND STANFORD.

People were not excited over canals only; everybody was interested about the coming railroads. George Stephenson, in the midst of the greatest opposition, landowners even driving the surveyors off their grounds, had built a road from Liverpool to Manchester, England, which was opened Sept. 15, 1830. The previous month, August, the Mohawk and Hudson River Railroad from Albany to Schenectady, sixteen miles, was commenced, a charter having been granted sometime before this. Josiah Stanford was greatly interested in this enterprise, and took large contracts for grading. Men at the Stanford home talked of the great future of railroads in America, and even prophesied a road to Oregon. "Young as he was when the question of a railroad to Oregon was first agitated," says a writer, "Leland Stanford took a lively interest in the measure. Among its chief advocates at that early day was Mr. Whitney, one of the engineers in the construction of the Mohawk and Hudson River Railway. On one occasion, when Whitney passed the night at Elm Grove, Leland being then thirteen years of age, the conversation ran largely on this overland railway project; and the effect upon the mind of such a boy may be readily imagined. The remembrance of that night's discussion between Whitney and his father never left him, but bore the grandest fruits."

The cheerful, big-hearted boy worked on his father's farm with his brothers, rising at five o'clock, even on cold winter mornings, that he might get his work done before school hours. He himself tells how he earned his first dollar. "I was about six years old," he said. "Two of my brothers and I gathered a lot of horseradish from the garden, washed it clean, took it to Schenectady, and sold it. I got two of the six shillings received. I was very proud of my money. My next financial venture was two years later. Our hired man came from Albany, and told us chestnuts were high. The boys had a lot of them on hand which we had gathered in the fall. We hurried off to market with them, and sold them for twenty-five dollars. That was a good deal of money when grown men were getting only two shillings a day."

Perhaps the boy felt that he should not always like to work on the farm, for he had made up his mind to get an education if possible. When he was eighteen his father bought a piece of woodland, and told him if he would cut off the timber he might have the money received for it. He immediately hired several persons to help him, and together they cut and piled 2,600 cords of wood, which Leland sold to the Mohawk and Hudson River Railroad at a profit of $2,600.

After using some of this money to pay for his schooling at an academy at Clinton, N.Y., he went to Albany, and for three years studied law with the firm of Wheaton, Doolittle, & Hadley. He disliked Greek and Latin, but was fond of science, particularly geology and chemistry, and was a great reader, especially of the newspapers. He attended all the lectures attainable, and was fond of discussion upon all progressive topics. Later in life he studied sociological matters, and read John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer.

Young Stanford determined to try his fortune in the West. He went as far as Chicago, and found it low, marshy, and unattractive. This was in 1848, when he was twenty-four years old. The town had been organized but fifteen years, and did not have much to boast of. There were only twenty-eight voters in Chicago in 1833. In 1837 the entire population was 4,470. Chicago had grown rapidly by 1848; but mosquitoes were abundant, and towns farther up Lake Michigan gave better promise for the future. Mr. Stanford finally settled at Port Washington, Wis., above Milwaukee, which place it was thought would prove a rival of Chicago. Forty years later, in 1890, Port Washington had a population of 1,659, while Chicago had increased to 1,099,850.

Mr. Stanford did well the first year at Port Washington, earning $1,260. He remained another year, and then, at twenty-six, went back to Albany to marry Miss Jane Lathrop, daughter of Mr. Dyer Lathrop, a respected merchant. They returned to Port Washington, but Mr. Stanford did not find the work of a country lawyer congenial. He had chosen his profession, however, and would have gone on to a measure of success in it, probably, had not an accident opened up a new field.

He had been back from his wedding journey but a year or more, when a fire swept away all his possessions, including a quite valuable law library. The young couple were really bankrupt, but they determined not to return to Albany for a home.

Several of Mr. Stanford's brothers had gone to California in 1849, after the gold-fields were discovered, and had opened stores near the mining-camps. If Leland were to join them, it would give him at least more variety than the quiet life at Port Washington. The young wife went back to Albany to care for three years for her invalid father, who died in April, 1855. The husband sailed from New York, spending twelve days in crossing the isthmus, and in thirty-eight days reached San Francisco, July 12, 1852. For four years he had charge of a branch store at Michigan Bluffs, Placer County, among the miners.

He engaged also in mining, and was not afraid of the labor and privations of the camp. He said some years later, "The true history of the Argonauts of the nineteenth century has to be written. They had no Jason to lead them, no oracles to prophesy success nor enchantments to avert dangers; but, like self-reliant Americans, they pressed forward to the land of promise, and travelled thousands of miles, when the Greek heroes travelled hundreds. They went by ship and by wagon, on horseback and on foot; a mighty army, passing over mountains and deserts, enduring privations and sickness; they were the creators of a commonwealth, the builders of states."

Mr. Stanford had the energy of his father; he had learned how to work while on the farm, and he had a pleasant and kindly manner to all. Said a friend of his, after Mr. Stanford had become the governor of a great State, and the possessor of many millions, "The man who held the throttle of the locomotive, he who handled the train, worked the brake, laid the rail, or shovelled the sand, was his comrade, friend, and equal. His life was one of tender, thoughtful compassion for the man less fortunate in life than himself."

The young lawyer was making money, and a good reputation as well, in the mining-camps. Says an old associate, "Mr. Stanford in an unusual degree commanded the respect of the heterogeneous lot of men who composed the mining classes, and was frequently referred to by them as a sort of arbitrator in settling their disputes for them. While at Michigan Bluffs he was elected a justice of the peace, which office was the court before which all disputes and contentions of the miners and their claims were settled. It is a singular fact, with all the questions that came before him for settlement, not one of them was appealed to a higher court.

"Leland Stanford was at this time just as gentle in his manner and as cordial and respectful to all as in his later years. Yet he was possessed of a courage which, when tested, as occasion sometimes required, satisfied the rough element that he was not a man who could be imposed upon. His principle seemed to be to stand up for the right at all times. He never indulged in profanity or coarse words of any kind, and was as considerate in his conduct when holding intercourse with the rough element as though in the midst of the highest refinement."

Mr. Stanford had prospered so well that in 1855 he purchased the business of his brothers in Sacramento, and went East to bring his wife to the Pacific Coast. He studied his business carefully. He made himself conversant with the statistics of trade, the tariff laws, the best markets and means of transportation. He read and thought, while some others idled away their hours. He was deeply interested in the new Republican party, which was then in the minority in California. He believed in it, and worked earnestly for it. When the party was organized in the State in 1856, he was one of the founders of it. He became a candidate for State treasurer, and was defeated. Three years later he was nominated for governor; "but the party was too small to have any chance, and the contest lay between opposing Democratic factions." Mr. Stanford was to learn how to win success against fires and political defeats.

A year later he was a delegate at large to the Republican National Convention; and instead of supporting Mr. Seward, who was from his own State of New York, he worked earnestly for Abraham Lincoln, with whom he formed a lasting friendship. After Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated, Mr. Stanford remained in Washington several weeks, at the request of the president and Secretary Seward, to confer with them about the surest means of keeping California loyal to the Union.

Mr. Blaine says of California and Oregon at this time: "Jefferson Davis had expected, with a confidence amounting to certainty, and based, it is believed, on personal pledges, that the Pacific Coast, if it did not actually join the South, would be disloyal to the Union, and would, from its remoteness and its superlative importance, require a large contingent of the national forces to hold it in subjection.

"It was expected by the South that California and Oregon would give at least as much trouble as Kentucky and Missouri, and would thus indirectly, but powerfully, aid the Southern cause."

In the spring of 1861 Mr. Stanford was again nominated by the Republicans for governor. Though he declined at first, after he had consented, with his usual vigor, earnestness, and perseverance, with faith in himself and his fellow-men as well, he and his friends made a thorough and spirited canvass; and Mr. Stanford received 56,036 votes, about six times as many as were given him two years before.

"The period," says the San Francisco Chronicle, "was one of unexampled difficulty of administration; and to add to the embarrassments occasioned by the Civil War, the city of Sacramento and a vast area of the valley were inundated. On the day appointed for the inauguration the streets of Sacramento were swept by a flood, and Mr. Stanford and his friends were compelled to go and return to the Capitol in boats. The messages of Governor Stanford, and indeed all his state papers, indicated wide information, great common-sense, and a comprehensive grasp of State and national affairs, remarkable in one who had never before held office under either the State or national government. During his administration he kept up constant and cordial intercourse with Washington, and had the satisfaction of leaving the chair of state at the close of his term of office feeling that no State in the Union was more thoroughly loyal."

There was much disloyalty in California at first, but Mr. Stanford was firm as well as conciliatory. The militia was organized, a State normal school was established, and the indebtedness of the State reduced one-half under his leadership as governor.

After the war was over, Governor Stanford cherished no animosities. When Mr. Lamar's name was sent to the Senate as associate justice of the Supreme Court, and many were opposed, Mr. Stanford said, "No man sympathized more sincerely than myself with the cause of the Union, or deprecated more the cause of the South. I would have given fortune and life to have defeated that cause. But the war has terminated, and what this country needs now is absolute and profound peace. Lamar was a representative Southern man, and adhered to the convictions of his boyhood and manhood. There never can be pacification in this country until these war memories are obliterated by the action of the Executive and of Congress."

Mr. Stanford declined a re-election to the governorship, because he wished to give his time to the building of a railroad across the continent. He had never forgotten the conversation in his father's home about a railroad to Oregon. When he went back to Albany for Mrs. Stanford, after being a storekeeper among the mines, and she was ill from the tiresome journey, he cheered her with the promise, "Never mind; a time will come when I will build a railroad for you to go home on."

Every one knew that a railroad was needed. Vessels had to go around Cape Horn, and troops and produce had to be transported over the mountains and across the plains at great expense and much hardship. Some persons believed the building of a road over the snow-capped Sierra Nevada Mountains was possible; but most laughed the project to scorn, and denounced it as "a wild scheme of visionary cranks."

"The huge snow-clad chain of the Sierra Nevadas," says Mr. Perkins, the senator from California who succeeded Mr. Stanford, "whose towering steeps nowhere permitted a thoroughfare at an elevation less than seven thousand feet above the sea, must be crossed; great deserts, waterless, and roamed by savage tribes, must be made accessible; vast sums of money must be raised, and national aid secured at a time in which the credit of the central government had fallen so low that its bonds of guaranty to the undertaking sold for barely one-third their face value."

In the presence of such obstacles no one seemed ready to undertake the work of building the railroad. One of the persistent advocates of the plan was Theodore J. Judah, the engineer of the Sacramento Valley and other local railroads. He had convinced Mr. Stanford that the thing was possible. The latter first talked with C. P. Huntington, a hardware merchant of Sacramento; then with Mark Hopkins, Mr. Huntington's partner, and later with Charles Crocker and others. A fund was raised to enable Mr. Judah and his associates to perfect their surveys; and the Central Pacific Railroad Company was formed, June 28, 1861, with Mr. Stanford as president.

In Mr. Stanford's inaugural address as governor he had dwelt upon the necessity of this railroad to unite the East and the West; and now that he had retired from the gubernatorial office, he determined to push the enterprise with all his power. Neither he nor his associates had any great wealth at their command, but they had faith and force of character. The aid of Congress was sought and obtained by a strictly party vote, Republicans being in the majority; and the bill was signed by President Lincoln, July 1, 1862.

The government agreed to give the company the alternate sections of 640 acres in a belt of land ten miles wide on each side of the railroad, and $16,000 per mile in bonds for the easily constructed portion of the road, and $32,000 and $48,000 per mile for the mountainous portions. The company was to build forty miles before it received government aid.

It was so difficult to raise money during the Civil War that Congress made a more liberal grant July 2, 1864, whereby the company received alternate sections of land within a belt twenty miles on each side of the road, or the large amount of 12,800 acres per mile, making for the company nearly 9,000,000 acres of land. The government was to retain, to apply on its debt, only half the money it owed the company for transportation instead of the whole. The most important provision of the new Act was the authority of the company to issue its own first-mortgage bonds to an amount not exceeding those of the United States, and making the latter take a second mortgage.

There is no question but the United States has given lavishly to railroads, as the cities have given their streets free to street railroads; but during the Civil War the need of communication between East and West seemed to make it wise to build the road at almost any sacrifice. Mr. Blaine says, "Many capitalists who afterwards indulged in denunciations of Congress for the extravagance of the grants, were urged at the time to take a share in the scheme, but declined because of the great risk involved."

Mr. Stanford broke ground for the railroad by turning the first shovelful of earth early in 1863. "At times failure seemed inevitable," says the New York Tribune, June 22, 1893. "Even the stout-hearted Crocker declared that there were times when he would have been glad to 'lose all and quit;' but the iron will of Stanford triumphed over everything. As president of the road he superintended its construction over the mountains, building 530 miles in 293 days. On the last day, Crocker laid the rails on more than ten miles of track. That the great railroad builders survived the ordeal is a marvel. Crocker, indeed, never recovered from the effects of the terrific strain. He died in 1888. Hopkins died twelve years before, in 1876."

With a silver hammer Governor Stanford drove a golden spike at Promontory Point, Utah, May 10, 1869, which completed the line of the Central Pacific, and joined it with the Union Pacific Railroad, and the telegraph flashed the news from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The Union Pacific was built from Omaha, Neb., to Promontory Point, though Ogden, Utah, fifty-two miles east of Promontory Point, is now considered the dividing line.

After this road was completed, Mr. Stanford turned to other labors. He was made president or director of several railroads,—the Southern Pacific, the California & Oregon, and other connecting lines. He was also president of the Oriental and Occidental Steamship Company, which plied between San Francisco and Chinese ports, and was interested in street railroads, woollen mills, and the manufacture of sugar.

Foreseeing the great future of California, he purchased very large tracts of land, including Vina with nearly 60,000 acres, the Gridley Ranch with 22,000 acres, and his summer home, Palo Alto, thirty miles from San Francisco, with 8,400 acres. He built a stately home in San Francisco costing over $1,000,000, and in his journeys abroad collected for it costly paintings and other works of art.

But his chief delight was in his Palo Alto estate. Here he sought to plant every variety of tree, from the world over, that would grow in California. Many thousands were set out each year. He was a great lover of trees, and could tell the various kinds from the bark or leaf.

He loved animals, especially the horse, and had the largest horse farm for raising horses in the world. Some of his remarkable thoroughbreds and trotters were Electioneer, Arion, Palo Alto, Sunol, "the flying filly," Racine, Piedmont that cost $30,000, and many others. He spent $40,000, it is said, in experiments in instantaneous photography of the horse; and a book resulted, "The Horse in Motion," which showed that the ideas of painters about a horse at high speed were usually wrong. No one was ever allowed to kick or whip a horse or destroy a bird on the estate. Mr. George T. Angell of Boston tells of the remark made to General Francis A. Walker by Mr. Stanford. The horses of the latter were so gentle that they would put their noses on his shoulder, or come up to visitors to be petted. "How do you contrive to have your horses so gentle?" asked General Walker. "I never allow a man to speak unkindly to one of my horses; and if a man swears at one of them, I discharge him," was the reply. There were large greenhouses and vegetable gardens at Palo Alto, and acres of wheat, rye, oats, and barley. But the most interesting and beautiful and highly prized of all the charms at Palo Alto was an only child, a lad named Leland Stanford, Jr. He was never a rugged boy; but his sunny, generous nature and intellectual qualities gave great promise of future usefulness. Mrs. Sallie Joy White, in the January, 1892, Wide Awake, tells some interesting things about him. She says, "His chosen playmate was a little lame boy, the son of people in moderate circumstances, who lived near the Stanfords in San Francisco. The two were together almost constantly, and each was at home in the other's house. He was very considerate of his little playfellow, and constituted himself his protector."

When Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper was making efforts to raise money for the free kindergarten work in San Francisco suggested by Felix Adler in 1878, she called on Mrs. Stanford, and the boy Leland heard the story of the needs of poor children. Putting his hand in his mother's, he said, "Mamma, we must help those children."

"Well, Leland," said his mother, "what do you wish me to do?"

"Give Mrs. Cooper $500 now, and let her start a school, then come to us for more." And Leland's wish was gratified.

"Between this time, 1879, and 1892," says Miss M. V. Lewis in the Home Maker for January, 1892, "Mrs. Leland Stanford has given $160,000, including a permanent endowment fund of $100,000 for the San Francisco kindergartens." She supports seven or more, five in San Francisco, and two at Palo Alto.

A writer in the press says, "Her name is down for $8,000 a year for these schools, and I am told she spends much more. I attended a reception given her by the eight schools under her patronage; and it was a very affecting sight to watch these four hundred children, all under four years of age, marching into the hall and up to their benefactor, each tiny hand grasping a fragrant rose which was deposited in Mrs. Stanford's lap. These children are gathered from the slums of the city. It is far wiser to establish schools for the training of such as these, than to wait until sin and crime have done their work, and then make a great show of trying to reclaim them through reformatory institutions."

Leland, Jr., was very fond of animals. Mrs. White tells this story: "One day, when he was about ten years of age, he was standing looking out of the window, and his mother heard a tumult outside, and saw Leland suddenly dash out of the house, down the steps, into a crowd of boys in front of the house. Presently he reappeared covered with dust, holding a homely yellow dog in his arms. Quick as a flash he was up the steps and into the house with the door shut behind him, while a perfect howl of rage went up from the boys outside.

"Before his mother could reach him he had flown to the telephone, and summoned the family doctor. Thinking from the agonized tones of the boy that some of the family had been taken suddenly and violently ill, the doctor hastened to the house.

"He was a stately old gentleman, who believed fully in the dignity of his profession; and he was somewhat disconcerted and a good deal annoyed at being confronted with a very dusty, excited boy, holding a broken-legged dog that was evidently of the mongrel family. At first he was about to be angry; but the earnest, pleading look on the little face, and the perfect innocence of any intent of discourtesy, disarmed the dignified doctor, and he explained to Leland that he did not understand the case, not being accustomed to treating dogs, but that he would take him and the dog to one who was. So they went, doctor, boy, and dog, in the doctor's carriage to a veterinary surgeon, the leg was set, and they returned home. Leland took the most faithful care of the dog until it recovered, and it repaid him with a devotion that was touching."

Leland, knowing that he was to be the heir of many millions, was already thinking how some of the money should be used. He had begun to gather materials for a museum, to which the parents devoted two rooms in their San Francisco home. He was fitting himself for Yale College, was excellent in French and German, and greatly interested in art and archÆology. Before entering upon the long course of study at college, he travelled with his parents abroad. In Athens, in London, on the Bosphorus, everywhere, with an open hand, his parents allowed him to gather treasures for his museum, and for a larger institution which he had in mind to establish sometime.

While staying for a while in Rome, symptoms of fever developed in young Leland, and he was taken at once to Florence. The best medical skill was of no avail; and he soon died, March 13, 1884, two months before his sixteenth birthday. His parents telegraphed this sad message home, "Our darling boy went to heaven this morning."

The story is told that while watching by the bedside of his son, worn with care and anxiety, Governor Stanford fell asleep, and dreamed that his son said to him, "Father, don't say you have nothing to live for; you have a great deal to live for. Live for humanity, father," and that this dream proved a comforter.

The almost prostrated parents brought home their beloved boy to bury him at Palo Alto. On Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, Nov. 27, 1884, the doors of the tomb which had been prepared near the house were opened at noon, and Leland Stanford, Jr., was laid away for all time from the sight of those who loved him. The bearers were sixteen of the oldest employees on the Palo Alto farm. The sarcophagus in which Leland, Jr., sleeps is eight feet four inches long, four feet wide, and three feet six inches high, built of pressed bricks, with slabs of white Carrara marble one inch thick firmly fastened to the bricks with cement. In the front slab of this sarcophagus are cut these words:—

Born in Mortality
May 14, 1868,
LELAND STANFORD, JR.
Passed to Immortality
March 13, 1884.

Electric wires were placed in the walls of the tomb, in the doors of iron, and even in the foundations, so that no sacrilegious hand should disturb the repose of the sleeper without detection. Memorial services for young Leland were held in Grace Church, San Francisco, on the morning of Sunday, Nov. 30, 1884, the Rev. Dr. J. P. Newman of New York preaching an eloquent sermon. The floral decorations were exquisite; one bower fifteen feet high with four floral posts supporting floral arches, a cross six feet high of white camellias, lilies, and tuberoses, relieved by scarlet and crimson buds, and pillows and wreaths of great beauty.

"Nature had highly favored him for some noble purpose," said Dr. Newman. "Although so young, he was tall and graceful as some Apollo Belvidere, with classic features some master would have chosen to chisel in marble or cast in bronze; with eyes soft and gentle as an angel's, yet dreamy as the vision of a seer; with broad, white forehead, home of a radiant soul.... He was more than a son to his parents,—he was their companion. He was as an angel in his mother's sick room, wherein he would sit for hours and talk of all he had seen, and would cheer her hope of returning health by the assurance that he had prayed on his knees for her recovery on each of the twenty-four steps of the Scala Santa in Rome, and that when he was but eleven years old....

"He had selected, catalogued, and described for his projected museum seventeen cases of antique glass vases, bronze work, and terra-cotta statuettes, dating back far into the centuries, and which illustrate the creative genius of those early ages of our race."

Such a youth wasted no time in foolish pleasures or useless companions. Like his father he loved history, and sought out, says Dr. Newman, the place where Pericles had spoken, and Socrates died; "reverently pausing on Mars Hill where St. Paul had preached 'Jesus and the Resurrection;' and lingering with strange delight in the temple of Eleusis wherein death kissed his cheek into a consuming fire."

At the close of Dr. Newman's memorial address the favorite hymn of young Leland was sung, "Tell Me the Old, Old Story." From this crushing blow of his son's death Mr. Stanford never recovered. For years young Leland's room in the San Francisco home was kept ready and in waiting, the lamp dimly lighted at night, and the bedclothes turned back by loving hands as if he were coming back again. The horses the boy used to ride were kept unused in pasture at Palo Alto, and cared for, for the sake of their fair young owner. The little yellow dog whose broken leg was set was left at Palo Alto when the boy went to Europe with his parents. When he was brought back a corpse, the dog knew all too well the story of the bereavement. After the body was placed in the tomb, the faithful creature took his place in front of the door. He could not be coaxed away even for his food, and one morning he was found there dead. He was buried near his devoted human friend.

"Toots," an old black and tan whom young Leland had brought from Albany, was much beloved. "Mr. Stanford would not allow a dog in the house save this one," says a writer in the San Francisco Chronicle. "'Toots' was an exception, and he had full run of the house. He was the envy of all the dogs, even of the noble old Great Dane. 'Toots' would climb upon the sofa alongside of Mr. Stanford, and forgetting a well-known repugnance he would pet him and say, 'There is always a place for you; always a place for you.'"

The year following the death of young Leland, on Nov. 14, 1885, Mr. Stanford and his wife founded and endowed their great University at Palo Alto. In conveying the estates to the trustees, Mr. Stanford said, "Since the idea of establishing an institution of this kind for the benefit of mankind came directly and largely from our son and only child, Leland, and in the belief that had he been spared to advise us as to the disposition of our estate he would have desired the devotion of a large portion thereof to this purpose, we will that for all time to come the institution hereby founded shall bear his name, and shall be known as the 'Leland Stanford, Jr., University.'"

Mr. Stanford and his wife visited various institutions of learning throughout the country, and found consolation in raising this noble monument to a noble son—infinitely to be preferred to shafts or statues of marble and bronze.

This same year, 1885, Mr. Stanford's friends, fearing the effect of his sorrow, and hoping to divert him somewhat from it, secured his election by the California Legislature to the United States Senate. He took his seat March 4, 1885, just a year after the death of his son. He did not make many speeches, but he proved a very useful member from his good sense and counsel and kindly leaning toward all helpful legislation for the poor and the unfortunate. He was re-elected March 3, 1891, for a second term of six years.

He will be most remembered in Congress for his Land-Loan Bill which he originated and presented to the Senate. "The bill proposed that money should be issued upon land to half the amount of its value, and for such loan the government was to receive an annual interest of two per cent per annum."

"Whatever may be thought by some of the practical utility of his financial scheme," says Mr. Mitchell, a senator from Oregon, "which he so earnestly and ably advocated, and which was approved by millions of his countrymen, for the loaning of money by the United States direct to the people at a low rate of interest, taking mortgages on farms as security, all will now agree it indicated in unmistakable terms a philanthropic spirit, an earnest desire to aid, through the instrumentality of what he regarded as constitutional and proper governmental influence, not the great moneyed institutions of the country, not the vast corporations of the land, with several of which he was prominently identified in a business way, but rather the great masses of producers,—the farmers, the planters, and the wage-workers of his country."

In this connection the suggestion of Professor Richard T. Ely in his book on "Socialism and Social Reform," page 334, might well be heeded. After showing that Germany and other countries have used government credit to some extent in behalf of the farming community, and that New York State has been making loans to farmers for a generation or more, he says, "A sensible demand on the part of farmers' organizations would be that Congress should appoint a commission of experts to investigate thoroughly the use of government credit in various countries and at different times, in behalf of the individual citizen, especially the farmer, and to make a full and complete report, in order that anything which is done should be based upon the lessons to be derived from actual experience."

Mr. and Mrs. Stanford were much beloved in Washington for their cordiality and generosity. They gave an annual dinner to the Senate pages, with a gift for each boy of a gold scarf-pin, or something attractive, and at Christmas a five-dollar gold-piece to each. Also a luncheon each winter, and gifts of money, gloves, etc., to the telegraph and messenger boys. Every orphan asylum and charity hospital in Washington was remembered at Christmas. Mr. Sibley, representative for Pennsylvania, relates this incident showing Mr. Stanford's habit of giving. "My partner and myself had purchased a young colt of him, for which we paid him $12,500. He took out his check-book, drew two checks of $6,250 each, and sent them to two different city homes for friendless children; and with a twinkle in his eye, and broadly beaming benevolence in his features, said, 'Electric Bell ought to make a great horse; he starts in making so many people happy in the very beginning of his life.'"

Mr. Daniels of Virginia tells how Mr. Stanford was observed one day by a friend to give $2,000 to an inventor who was trying to apply an electric motor to the sewing-machine. Mr. Stanford remarked, "This is the thirtieth man to whom I have given a like sum to develop that idea."

After Mr. Stanford had been in the Senate two years, on May 14, 1887, he and Mrs. Stanford laid the corner-stone of their University at Palo Alto, on the 19th anniversary of the birthday of Leland Stanford, Jr. In less than four years, on October 1, 1891, the doors of the University were opened to receive five hundred students, young men and women; for Mr. Stanford had written in his grant of endowment "to afford equal facilities and give equal advantages in the University to both sexes." In his address to the trustees he said, "The rights of one sex, political or otherwise, are the same as those of the other sex, and this equality of rights ought to be fully recognized."

Mrs. Stanford said to Mrs. White as they sat in her library at Palo Alto, "Whatever the boys have, the girls have as well. We mean that the girls of our country shall have a fair chance. There shall be no dividing line in the studies. If a girl desires to become an electrician, she shall have the opportunity, and that opportunity shall be the same as the young men's. If she wishes to study mechanics, she may do it."

Mr. Stanford said in his address on the day of opening, "I speak for Mrs. Stanford as well as for myself, for she has been my active and sympathetic coadjutor, and is co-grantor with me in the endowment and establishment of this University."

They had been urged to give their fortune in other directions, as some persons believed that much education would unfit people for labor. "We do not believe," said Mr. Stanford, and the world honors him for his belief, "there can be superfluous education. As man cannot have too much health and intelligence, so he cannot be too highly educated. Whether in the discharge of responsible or humble duties he will ever find the knowledge he has acquired through education, not only of practical assistance to him, but a factor in his personal happiness, and a joy forever."

Mr. Stanford desired that the students should "not only be scholars, but have a sound practical idea of commonplace, every-day matters, a self-reliance that will fit them, in case of emergency, to earn their own livelihood in an humble as well as an exalted sphere." To this end he provided, besides the usual studies in colleges, for "mechanical institutes, laboratories, etc." There are departments of civil engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, besides shorthand and typewriting, agriculture, and other practical work.

He wished to have taught in the University "the right and advantages of association and co-operation. ... Laws should be formed to protect and develop co-operative associations. Laws with this object in view will furnish to the poor man complete protection against the monopoly of the rich; and such laws, properly administered and availed of, will insure to the workers of the country the full fruits of their industry and enterprise."

He gave directions that "no drinking saloons shall be opened upon any part of the premises." He "prohibited sectarian instruction," but wished "to have taught in the University the immortality of the soul, the existence of an all-wise and benevolent Creator, and that obedience to His laws is the highest duty of man." Mr. Stanford said, "It seems to us that the welfare of man on earth depends on the belief in immortality, and that the advantages of every good act and the disadvantages of every evil one follow man from this life into the next, there attaching to him as certainly as individuality is maintained."

The object of the University is, he said, "to qualify students for personal success and direct usefulness in life." Again he said, "The object is not alone to give the student a technical education, fitting him for a successful business life, but it is also to instil into his mind an appreciation of the blessings of this government, a reverence for its institutions, and a love for God and humanity."

Mr. Stanford wished plain and substantial buildings, "built as needed and no faster," urging the trustees to bear in mind "that extensive and expensive buildings do not make a university; that it depends for its success rather upon the character and attainments of its faculty."

Mr. Stanford chose for the president of his University David Starr Jordan, well-known for his scientific work and his various books. Though a comparatively young man, being forty years of age, Dr. Jordan had had wide experience. He was graduated from Cornell University in 1872, and for two years was professor at institutions in Illinois and Wisconsin. In 1874 he was lecturer in marine botany at the Anderson School at Penikese, and the following year at the Harvard Summer School at Cumberland Gap. During the next four years, while holding the chair of biology in Butler University, Indianapolis, he was the naturalist of two geological surveys in Indiana and Ohio. For six years he was professor of zoÖlogy in Indiana University, and for the six years following its president. For fourteen years he had been assistant to the United States Fish Commission, exploring many of our rivers, and part of that time agent for the United States Census Bureau in investigating the marine industries of the Pacific Coast. He had studied also in the large museums abroad.

Dr. Albert Shaw tells this interesting incident. "President Jordan had once met the young Stanford boy on the seashore, and won the lad's gratitude by telling him of shells and submarine life. It was a singular coincidence that the parents afterwards heard Dr. Jordan make allusions in a public address which gave them the knowledge that this was the interesting stranger who had taught their son so much, and had so enkindled the boy's enthusiasm. His choice as president was an eminently wise one."

Mr. Stanford wished ten acres to be set aside "as a place of burial and of last rest on earth for the bodies of the grantors and of their son, Leland Stanford, Jr., and, as the board may direct, for the bodies of such other persons who may have been connected with the University."

Mr. Stanford lived to see his University opened and doing successful work. The plan of its buildings, suggested by the old Spanish Missions of California, was originally that of Richardson, the noted architect of Boston; but as he died before it was completed, the work was done by his successors, Shepley, Rutan, & Coolidge.

The plan contemplates a number of quadrangles in the midst of 8,400 acres. "The central group of buildings will constitute two quadrangles, one entirely surrounding the other," says the University Register for 1894—1895. "Of these the inner quadrangle, with the exception of the chapel, is now completed. Its twelve one-story buildings are connected by a continuous open arcade, facing a paved court 586 feet long by 246 feet wide, or three and a quarter acres. The buildings are of a buff sandstone, somewhat varied in color. The stone-work is of broken ashlar, with rough rock face, and the roofs are covered with red tile." Within the quadrangle are several circular beds of semi-tropical trees and plants.

Miss Milicent W. Shinn, in the Overland Monthly for October, 1891, says, "I should think it hard to say too much of the simple dignity, the calm influence on mind and mood, of the great, bright court, the deep arcade with its long vista of columns and arches, the heavy walls, the unchanging stone surfaces. They seemed to me like the rock walls of nature; they drew me back, and made me homesick for them when I had gone away."

Behind the central quadrangle are the shops, foundry, and boiler-house. On the east side is Encina Hall, a dormitory for 315 men, provided with electric lights, steam heat, and bathrooms on each floor. It is four stories high, and, like the quadrangle, of buff Almaden sandstone.

On the west side of the quadrangle is Roble Hall, for one hundred young women, and is built of concrete. There are two gymnasiums, called Encina and Roble gymnasiums.

Perhaps the most interesting of all the buildings, the especial gift of Mrs. Stanford, is the Leland Stanford Junior Museum, of concrete, in Greek style of architecture, 313 by 156 feet, including wings, situated a quarter of a mile from the quadrangle, and between the University and the Stanford residence. The collection made by young Leland is placed here, and his own arrangement reproduced. The collection includes Egyptian bronzes, Greek and Roman glass and statues. The Cesnola collection contains five thousand pieces of Greek and Roman pottery and glass. The Egyptian collection, made by Brugsch Bey, Curator of the Gizeh Museum, for Mrs. Stanford, comprises casts of statuary, mummies, scarabees, etc. Mr. Timothy Hopkins of San Francisco, one of the trustees, has given for the Egyptian collection embroideries dating from the sixth to the twenty-first dynasty. He has also given a collection of ancient and modern coins and costumes, household goods, etc., from Corea. There are stone implements from Copenhagen, Denmark, and relics from the mounds of America. Mrs. Stanford is making the collection of fine arts, and a very large number of copies of great paintings is intended. Much attention will be given to local history, Indian antiquities, and Spanish settlements of early California.

The library has 23,000 volumes and 6,000 pamphlets. Mr. Hopkins has given a valuable collection of railway books, unusually rich in the early history of railways in Europe and America, with generous provision for its increase. Mr. Hopkins has also founded the Hopkins Seaside Laboratory at Pacific Grove, two miles west of Monterey, to provide for investigations in marine biology, as a branch of the biological work of the University.

Students are not received into the University under sixteen years of age, and if special students, not under twenty, and must present certificates of good moral character. If from other colleges they must bring letters of honorable dismissal. They are offered a choice of twenty-two subjects for entrance examination, and must pass in twelve subjects. Tuition in all departments is free.

"The degree of Bachelor of Arts is granted to students who have satisfactorily completed the equivalent of four years' work of 15 hours of lecture or recitation weekly, or a total of 120 hours, and who have also satisfied the requirements in major and minor subjects."

President Jordan says, in the Educational Review for June, 1892: "In the arrangement of the courses of study two ideas are prominent: first, that every student who shall complete a course in the University must be thoroughly trained in some line of work. His education must have as its central axis an accurate and full knowledge of something. The second is that the degree to be received is wholly a subordinate matter, and that no student should be compelled to turn out of his way in order to secure it. The elective system is subjected to a single check. In order to prevent undue scattering, the student is required to select the work in general of some one professor as major subject or specialty, and to pursue this subject or line of subjects as far as the professor in charge may deem it wise or expedient. In order that all courses and all departments may be placed on exactly the same level, the degree of Bachelor of Arts is given in all alike for the equivalent of the four years' course. Should his major subject, for instance, be Greek, then the title is given that of Bachelor of Arts in Greek; should the major subject be chemistry, Bachelor of Arts in chemistry, and so on."

In 1895 there were 1,100 students in the University, of whom 728 were men, and 372 women. Several of the students are from the New England States.

Mr. Stanford spent over a million dollars in the University buildings, and gave as an endowment over 89,000 acres of land valued at more than five million dollars. The Palo Alto estate has 8,400 acres; the Vina estate, 59,000 acres, with over 4,000 acres planted to grapes which are made into wine—those of us who are total abstainers regret such use; and the Gridley estate 22,000 acres, one of California's great wheat farms. In years to come it is hoped that these properties, which are never to be sold, will so increase in value that they will be worth several times five millions.

Mr. and Mrs. Stanford made their wills, giving to the University "additional property," that the endowment, as Mr. Stanford said, "will be ample to establish and maintain a university of the highest grade." It has been stated, frequently, that the "full endowment" in land and money will be $20,000,000 or more.

Senator Stanford's death came suddenly at the last, at Palo Alto, Tuesday, June 20-21, 1893. He had not been well for some time; but Tuesday he had driven about the estate, with his usual interest and good cheer. He retired to rest about ten o'clock; and at midnight his wife, who occupied an adjoining apartment, heard a movement as if Mr. Stanford were making an effort to rise. She spoke to him, but received no answer. His breathing was unnatural; and in a few minutes he passed away, apparently without pain.

Mr. Stanford was buried at Palo Alto, Saturday, June 24. The body lay in the library of his home, in a black cloth-covered casket, with these words on the silver plate:—

LELAND STANFORD.
BORN TO MORTALITY MARCH 9, 1824.
PASSED TO IMMORTALITY, JUNE 21, 1893.
AGED 69 YRS., 3 MOS., 12 DAYS.

Flowers filled every part of the library. The Union League Club sent a floral piece representing the Stars and Stripes worked in red and white in "everlasting," with star lilies on a ground of violets. There was a triple arch of white and pink flowers representing the central arch of the main University building. There were wreaths and crosses and a broken wheel of carnations, hollyhocks, violets, white peas, and ferns.

At half-past one, after all the employees had taken their last look of the man who had always been their friend,—one, seventy-six years old, who had worked with Mr. Stanford in the mine, broke down completely,—the body was borne to the quadrangle of the University by eight of the oldest engineers in point of service on the Southern Pacific Railroad. The funeral cortÈge passed through a double line of the two hundred or more employees at Palo Alto, several Chinese laborers being at the end of the line. Senator Stanford was always opposed to any legislation against the Chinese.

The body was placed on a platform at one end of the quadrangle, the remaining space being filled with several thousand persons. About sixteen hundred chairs were provided, but these could accommodate only a small portion of those present. The platform was decorated with ferns, smilax, white sweet peas, and thousands of St. Joseph's lilies. The temporary chancel was flanked by two remarkable flower pieces: on the left, a fac-simile of the first locomotive ever purchased and operated on the Central Pacific Railroad, the "Governor Stanford," sent by the employees of the company. The boiler and smoke-stack were of mauve-colored sweet peas; the headlight and bell were of yellow pansies; the cab of white sweet peas bordered by yellow pansies; the tender of white sweet peas edged by pansies and lined with ivy; on the side of the cab, in heliotrope, the name Governor Stanford. On the right of the bier was the gift of the employees of the Palo Alto stock-farm, a representation in sweet peas of the senator's favorite bay horse.

After the burial service of the Episcopal Church, a solo, "O sweet and blessed country," and address by Dr. Horatio Stebbins of the First Unitarian Church of San Francisco, the choir sang "Lead Kindly Light," and the body of Senator Stanford was conveyed through the cypress avenue to the mausoleum in the ten acres adjoining the residence grounds. The tomb is in the form of a Greek temple lined with white marble, guarded by a sphinx on either side of the entrance.

Here beside the open doors stood another beautiful floral tribute, a shield eight feet high, of roses, lilies, and other flowers sent by the employees of the Sacramento Railroad shops. Worked in violets were the words "The Laborers' Tribute to the Laborers' Friend." The choir sang, "Abide with Me," the body was laid in the tomb, and the bronze doors were closed. A few days later the body of Leland Stanford, Junior, the boy whose death, as Dr. Stebbins said at the senator's funeral, "drew the sunbeams out of the day," was laid beside that of his father. Some time the mother will sleep here with her precious dead.

Mr. Stanford's heart was bound up in his University. He said, after his son died, "The children of California shall be our children." Mr. Sibley of Pennsylvania tells how, three years after Leland Junior died, he and Mr. Stanford "went together to the tomb of the boy, and the father told amid tears and sobs how, since the death of his son, he had adopted and taken to his heart and love every friendless boy and girl in all the land, and that, so far as his means afforded, they should go to make the path of every such an one smoother and brighter."

Mr. Stanford told Dr. Stebbins, in speaking of the University: "We feel [he always used the plural, thus including that womanly heart from whose fountains his life had ever been refreshed] that we have good ground for hope. We are very happy in our work. We do not feel that we are making great sacrifices. We feel that we are working with and for the Almighty Providence."

By the will of Mr. Stanford the University receives two and a half million dollars, but this bequest is not yet available. He always felt, and rightly, that his wife owned all their large fortune equally with himself; therefore he placed no restrictions upon her disposal of it. Inasmuch as she is a co-founder of the University, she will doubtless add largely to its endowment. Should she do this, the power of Leland Stanford Junior University for good will be almost unlimited.

Even granite mausoleums crumble away; but great deeds last forever, and make their doers immortal.