geology department was an
unusually high one.

But with all his work and study he found time for some other kinds of
activity. At least the two Irwin boys, Will and Wallace, who were
Stanford's most ingenious disturbers of the peace in pioneer days, claim
that Hoover, in his quiet effective way, made a few contributions of his
own to the troubles of the faculty. But such contributions from others
were generally credited--or rather debited--to the more notorious
offenders, so that they had to suffer not alone for their own brilliant
inspirations but for those of other less conspicuous collaborators.
Wallace, for what seemed to the faculty sufficient reasons, was, as he
has himself phrased it, "graduated by request," while Will had his
Senior year encored by the faculty, so that it took him five years,
instead of the more conventional four, to graduate. In fact, I remember
that even as this fifth year was drawing near its close, the faculty
committee of discipline, of which I was a reluctant member, seriously
considered letting Will go in the same way that Wallace had gone. But
some of us argued that if we should let Will graduate in the more usual
way we should be rid of him soon anyway and without risking the bare
possibilities of doing him an injustice. President Jordan always
maintained that Will had good stuff in him, and he used his ameliorating
influence with the faculty committee. So Will Irwin is today one of
Stanford's best-known alumni.

Herbert Hoover's haunting trouble all through his college course was
that unpassed entrance requirement in English composition. Indeed, he
did not pass in it until about a week before he graduated, although he
tried it regularly every semester all through his four years. How he
finally got his passing mark has been told me by Mrs. Hoover. She knows
because she was there through most of the long agony.

After failing regularly at each semester's trial principally, he thinks
(and Mrs. Hoover is inclined to agree), because he always had to take
it under a particularly meticulous instructor, his predicament began to
worry even his professors in the geology department. It looked as if
their star student might not be allowed to graduate. Finally a date was
set by the English department for a last trial before the end of his
Senior year.

A day or two before this date the professor of paleontology, J. P.
Smith, famed not only for his erudition but for his especial kindness to
all