ng eccentric in it; let Stanford not fear to be eccentric to
the end, if need be. Let her not imitate; let her lead, not follow.
Especially let her not be bound by vulgar traditions as to the
cheapness or dearness of professorial service. The day is certainly
about to dawn when some American university will break all precedents
in the matter of instructors' salaries, and will thereby immediately
take the lead, and reach the winning post for quality. I like to think
of Stanford being that university. Geniuses are sensitive plants, in
some respects like _prima donnas_. They have to be treated tenderly.
They don't need to live in superfluity; but they need freedom from
harassing care; they need books and instruments; they are always
overworking, so they need generous vacations; and above all things they
need occasionally to travel far and wide in the interests of their
souls' development. Where quality is the thing sought after, the thing
of supreme quality is cheap, whatever be the price one has to pay for
it.

Considering all the conditions, the quality of Stanford has from the
first been astonishingly good both in the faculty and in the student
body. Can we not, as we sit here to-day, frame a vision of what it may
be a century hence, with the honors of the intervening years all rolled
up in its traditions? Not vast, but intense; less a place for teaching
youths and maidens than for training scholars; devoted to truth;
radiating influence; setting standards; shedding abroad the fruits of
learning; mediating between America and Asia, and helping the more
intellectual men of both continents to understand each other better.

What a history! and how can Stanford ever fail to enter upon it?

[1] An Address at Stanford University on Founders' Day, 1906. Printed
in _Science_, for May 25, 1906.

XV

A PLURALISTIC MYSTIC[1]

Not for the ignoble vulgar do I write this article, but only for those
dialectic-mystic souls who have an irresistible taste, acquired or
native, for higher flights of metaphysics. I have always held the
opinion that one of the first duties of a good reader is to summon
other readers to the enjoyment of any unknown author of rare quality
whom he may discover in his explorations. Now for years my own taste,
literary as well as philosophic, has been exquisitely titillated by a
writer the name of whom I think must be unknown to the readers of this
article; so I no longer continue sile