Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-08-31
THE STANFORD MEMORIAL COLLEGE.

The San Francisco Alta expresses the
hope that there is no truth in the rumor
that Governor Stanford's proposed memoir
ial college is to be located in a rural spot.
Our contemporary argues at length and Wig
orously for a city location, claiming that
learning need no longer flee from the seats
Of commerce, and that great schools should
be located where they will be of greatest
good to the greatest number. Upon that
basis there appears to us every reason why
great schools should be some dis
lance removed from great centers of popu-
lation. The seat of commerce is also the
seat of vice. The temptations of city life
are peculiarly attractive to impossible
! youth. Its excitements and allurements
are antagonistic to that calm of mind that
is the hand-maiden of study. There is no
stronger reason to be advanced why a
great college should be located in great
city than that city students may be thereby
enabled to avail of it, who could live at
the homes of their parents and who might
otherwise find it difficult or impossible to
bear the burden of expense away from
home. But does this consideration out
| weigh the indisputable advantages of a
country residence, with all the physical
and mental stimulants that attach to it,?
We think not. The aim of great educa-
tional institutions is to accomplish high
results; not so much to afford bread oppor-
tunities to a great number, as to most fully
develop the intellectually of those
profting by them, and to fit them
for the active duties of life. 1t is
brain that wins in this day more than
Drawn, but the untainted atmosphere
physical and moral-of the rural retreat
| is more conducive to the development
Of both. The conditions of life in great
city are at once enervating and falsely
stimulating. To the youth from the
country who goes to the great city for edu-
cational development the change is a rude
one; in more cases than most people realize,
damaging one. He finds himself socially
Insignificant, and unless his lines are very
| happily cast within good influences, all the
tendencies are to push him into habits
antagonistic to his physical and mental
growth, and damaging to his moral tone
| There is so much less account taken of in
dividual existence and personal value, in
the city, that only the few become posi-
| tive forces in it. City life is drain upon
purse and person, and only those youths
exceptionally well anchored in their moral
characters are likely to come out of it I'M
smirched. In the city the boy sees only
the constant Implying and merciless rush
to secure wealth and position. 1t develops
| the young men endowed with the sterner
elements of success; it brushes or COWS
| those who lack them, but in whom edu-
cational methods can plant and develop
the needs for lifes struggle. We have no
| idea whatever what Gov. Standards con-
temptation may be regarding the location
OF his Memorial college, but since the
matter is being debated, the subject hav-
ing been brought up by the arrival of
President Walker of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology-we feel confident
that the evolution of the debate will de-
velop choice on his part for the calm of
country life for the benefciaries of his
bounty.