The record-union., 1893-06-22
LELAND STANFORD.

cfic Coast, aud equally with any citizen
of America, Leland Stanford impressed
his thought upon material things. A close
student OF social and political institutions,
and having qualified himself for the
practice Of the law, one of those peculiar
circumstances, so commonly met with in
American biography, occurred to change
the field of his activity. From the forum
TO the political arena, there is in Ameri-
can life most natural and logical transit
ton. Leland Stanford was chosen Gov
ernor of his adopted State. Other and
higher distinction would have followed
but for the strong appeal made to his
genius for practical affairs by the primi-
tive development of the State which had
honored him with the position of its chief
maglstracy. Later in life he rose to the
distinction of q Senator in Congress, that
great office being almost the unanimous
conferment of the voice of the people of
all parties. But between these two events
OF political distinction he became distin-
guished on broader field
A nation was involved in the throes OF
most formidable revolution. Republi-
can institutions were undergoing the
most severe ordeal ever encountered in
national history. Liberty was receiving
a rebaptisln of blood. Old traditions and
institutions were breaking up amid the
agonies of internecine war. A long
reign of peace was being succeeded by
the contention of gigantic social and
political forces. The mastery ad-
ministration of Lincoln, Seward, Chase,
and their compeers conceived the idea of
calling to the aid of the Government un-
developed commercial forces, and among
the boldest and most far-reaching of the
measures designed to maintain the Gov
ernment was the construction of a trans
continental railway. A design so vast in
intention, so varied and comprehensive
in statesmanlike plans, perhaps never be-
fore under similar national exigencies
offered so great challenge to credulity.
Bold designs have fascination for strong
natures and energetic minds. Governor
Stanford found in the difficulties of this
great undertaking an attraction which
truly enterprising men alone can feel.
He brought to the undertaking in its in
ception patriotic rather than a financial
motive. The part assigned to him and to
his associates was the most difficult part
OF the undertaking. To the engineering
and typographical difficulties of sur
mounting the highest range of mountains
to be encountered in the pathway of this
great civilizing agency there were finan-
cial difficulties of still greater magnitude
Physical obstacles could only be over
come by the employment OF financial
genius and administrative ability of the
first order. The task was successfully
accomplished, but between it's inception
and its completion, and the subsequent
successful expansion of that one great
transcontinental line into a vast network
OF railways, and the subsequent success
ful construction of a second, there were
many ordinary lifetimes of observation
and experience, and not the least of these
was that higher study of instrumental
ties, the availability and adaptabihty of
men.
The accomplishment of great results
through others comprises not only the
mastery of the task to be ACCOMPLISHED.
but the mastery of that higher science
and knowledge. the motives and capaci-
lies among men. 1t was through this
study of men that the educational scheme
known as the Leland Stanford Jr. Uni
versity was evolved. The successful
railroad builder is necessarily the student
of those commercial forces which are so
rapidly revolutionizing the science of
political economy, because establishing a
new and important relation between DO
lltical systems and social conditions and
those climatic influences which exert SO
important bearing upon human indus
try. To one who has commanded an in
dustrial army of many thousands, and
has accomplished results impossible to
individual effort, human achievement
and the relation of educational systems to
the character and capacities of men, ac-
quire new aspect. To such an expert
ence the individuals enlisted in such a
service become instrumentalities for the
accomplishment of ends, and the master
workman is made conscious of the mer-
its and the defects of these human instru-
mentalities. Naturally student of mo-
tive, he became by force of necessity a
student of human capacity, and by the
same law of necessity a student of charac-
ter, and from this, by the most logical
relevancy, student of those educational
forces which produce character.
The enterprise which Governor STAN
ford carried to such successful comple-
ton created a vast amount of wealth. It
conquered to the uses and purposes of
civilization a territory greater in ex-
tent than that which was subdued bv the
armies of Caesar through many years of
war. 1t extended the area of profitable
production over one-haIf the territorial
domain of the United States. 1t was a
single masteI-stroke of development, and
development is the creator of wealth.
That those who were the masters of this
great enterprise should have accumulated
large personal wealth was most natural.
but in this instance, for every dollar ac-
cumulated by them, hundreds, even
thousands, were created as the accumula-
ton of others. The thoughtful accumu-
lator of wealth is brought into very near
contact with the problem of its distribu-
tion among men; and it was at this close
range that Governor Stanford became
an observer of the diversities of fortune.
and thus from the study of its creation he
became student of the distribution of
wealth.
His observation of the capacity among
men to use others and to be used by
others having been made upon the broad
est field, extended itself to the contempla-
ton and inquiry into those systems OF
preparatory education, through which
character, capacity and usefulness 10
ones self, or to others, acting upon in
herited aptitudes, are evolved. And thus
was developed the educational theory
upon which the Leland Stanford Jr. Uni