mpressions are,
so will be the impressions of others. And those impressions, taken
together, will probably be the verdict of history on the institution
which Leland and Jane Stanford founded.

"Where there is no vision, the people perish." Mr. and Mrs. Stanford
evidently had a vision of the most prophetic sort. They saw the
opportunity for an absolutely unique creation, they seized upon it with
the boldness of great minds; and the passionate energy with which Mrs.
Stanford after her husband's death, drove the original plans through in
the face of every dismaying obstacle, forms a chapter in the biography
of heroism. Heroic also the loyalty with which in those dark years the
president and faculty made the university's cause, their cause, and
shared the uncertainties and privations.

And what is the result to-day? To-day the key-note is triumphantly
struck. The first step is made beyond recall. The character of the
material foundation is assured for all time as something unique and
unparalleled. It logically calls for an equally unique and
unparalleled spiritual superstructure.

Certainly the chief impression which the existing university must make
on every visitor is of something unique and unparalleled. Its
attributes are almost too familiar to you to bear recapitulation. The
classic scenery of its site, reminding one of Greece, Greek too in its
atmosphere of opalescent fire, as if the hills that close us in were
bathed in ether, milk and sunshine; the great city, near enough for
convenience, too far ever to become invasive; the climate, so friendly
to work that every morning wakes one fresh for new amounts of work; the
noble architecture, so generously planned that there room and to spare
for every requirement; the democracy of the life, no one superfluously
rich, yet all sharing, so far as their higher needs go, in the common
endowment--where could a genius devoted to the search for truth, and
unworldly as most geniuses are, find on the earth's whole round a place
more advantageous to come and work in? _Die Luft der Freiheit weht_!
All the traditions are individualistic. Red tape and organization are
at their minimum. Interruptions and perturbing distractions hardly
exist. Eastern institutions look all dark and huddled and confused in
comparison with this purity and serenity. Shall it not be auspicious?
Surely the one destiny to which this happy beginning seems to call
Stanford is that it should beco