Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-10-26
GENERAL EDUCATION.
LABOR RESPECTABLE AND IDLENEss
DIsREPUTABLE.
Senator Stanford's Idea in Establishing
the Leland Stanford Jr.
University.

The following article from the pen OF
Senator Leland Stanford, published in the
San Francisco Examiner of October 10th,
will be read with deep interest and COM
mand thoughtful consideration:
The future of the State of California will
equal in its greatness the capacity of the
human intelligence for expansion. No
where are the conditions of life happier
and better. no place on the globe contains
so fully the resources necessary for the
physical and intellectual improvement of
mankind.
The faculty for advantageously using the
resources of nature, which is only bounded
by the almost illimitable range of human
conception, is all that is needed to place
this State in the position it is possible for
her to occupy-the land of the highest de-
velopment of human comfort andlintel-
lectuaii
To advance that time was my object in
founding the institution at Palo Alto
which bears the name of my son. l was
satisfied when provided for this institu-
ton that all education tends to the physi-
cal as well as the intellectual advancement,
and what man does for education he does
for civil cation. Any education does this,
but l hope to have more from my institu-
ton. l want to improve the methods of
education.
/ was struck by remark that Professor
Agassiz made to me when he was here and
examined the great glacier. | asked him
if he thought that it would ever be &C.
counted for. He answered that it would.
He said that when the system of education
was so much improved that the knowledge
of the mineralogist the geologst, the pal
eontologist and the astronomer were COM
bined In one person the theory would be
understood
We had quite lengthy discussion about
education that impressed me very much.
and when | recall that the sources of sup
ply OF the wants, both physical and intel
lectual, are inexhaustible, it seems 10 me it
should be the aim of education to teach
man to utilize the forces that are around
him.
If every person IN the world had luxuri-
GUS surroundings; if every one had an ele-
CANT home with all its accomplishments,
still the sources of supply from which it
all came would not be materially affected :;
that IS, the mines and fields and cultivation
of the soils that give us these things would
not be appreciably lessened. l have great
faith III mans power to perfect his con-
troll OF the forces that surround him.
Already the discovery of the power of
steam and the way to convert it has added
immensely TO the power of production,
though nearly all of the labor-saving in
Ventlons have been brought into use dur
ing the present century. How immeasura-
bly, this power of production has increased
in the last fifty years is beyond concep-
ton.
1t was centuries before Watts noticed the
throbbing Of the boiling water in the tea
Kettle and gave US one of the natural forces
that we have controlled to a limited ex-
tent. So with the element of electricity
to what extent we can control il cannot be
told, but we have reason to hope for great
things from this great power. With this
increase of the power of production the
time will come when every provident and
industrious man may have all the comforts
and luxuries that are now within the
reach OF the rich. Labor properly distrib-
Dted and aided will do even more for the
intellectual requirements of man than for
his physical needs. Physical needs are
small in relation to the intellectual re.
quirements, for while the former are lin
tied the latter are capable of indefinite
expansion, Our capacity for intellectual
pleasures increases with our enjoyment Of
them. 1t is not so with the physical a
mans mind can never be filled to repletion
or his appetite for beauty and art satiated
In view of these things l wish my school
more especially directed to the investiga-
ton and teaching of how TO control the
forces of nature-how to make the elements
the servants of man-from the kindergar-
ten pupils TO the post graduates who may
have desire for deeper Investigations.
My aim is to make the education very
general in character, and particularly,
want the students to understand that labor
is respectable and idleness is disreputable.
We propose to fit the student, so far as
practicable, for his after life and not to con-
fine our course to literature and art.
deem it especially important that the
education of the female should be equal to
that of the male, and l am inclined to
think that if the education of either is
neglected, it had better be that of the man
than the woman, because If the mother is
well educated she insensibly imparts it to
the child. | remember that Balm in his
Elements of Criticism" says that a child
in the first seven years of its life has more
new ideas than in all his after life. Vol
taire says, l think, 1T you give me the
education of the child up to five years do
not care who educates him after that"
The mothers system of teaching is substan-
TALLY the kindergarten system. This is the
opinion OF Professor Agassiz.
The true system of education shows a
marked contrast to the system practiced
in our schools forty yesrs ago-getting a
lesson out of book to recite to the teacher.
Ny own son never went to any school
except the kindergarten. On one occasion
he came home delighted with something
that had opened his mind and wanted to
tell me about it. His teacher required all
the children to bring some natural object
to school as a subject for short talk. My
son had taken a pebble to the school. She
:. 81 - 4
She explained that that indicated that it
had probably been rolled back and for
ward on beach, for if it had been in a
running stream other stones passing over
it would have hattened ii. Then she dis
covered that ii was sandstone, and she told
him all about the formation of the rocks.
Then she saw q scratch on it, and ex-
planned how that might have come-maybe
from a stone passing over it or perhaps
from a glacier, This opened the way for 8
talk about glaciers, and the vision thus IN
folded to his mind made so profound an
impression on him that / am satisfied in
his short life this episode of his kinder
garten training turned his mind in the
direction of inquiries, the answers to which
were an education in themselves.
/ became much impressed with this incl
dent, and in following out the course of
education that impressed him so deeply l
hope for great things.
The current publications are really the
great educators, because they preserve and
disseminate ideas wherever people can
read, and do much in raising the standard
of intelligence among the people, thus en-
abling the many to appreciate and take adj
vantage OF the geniue OF the few.
1t is lack of education alone that makes
the great mass of the European peasantry
so slow in adopting the modern improve
ments They do not use machinery be-
cause they are neither aware of its exis-
tence nor able TO appreciate the advantages
of its use. One cannot fail to. remark over
the great superiority of hand tools in
America over those in use abroad. The
greatest extravaganza in Europe-greater
than that of their large standing armies
is in the waste of labor, using their hands
nnd r,nnr tools instead of machinery and