Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-03-10

used to set the dormitory into a roar.
Marooned at the university over Christ
mas holidays, he received In his Christ
mas box q big frosted cake. This he
traded for a tennis racket. When some
one criticized the transaction he said:
"a cake belongs to the things temporal,
but tennis racket to the things
eternal"
Made His Own Slang.
We were great creators Of slang in
early day Stanford; some of our bizarre
phrases, like "rough-neck," have passed
into the language. And Wilbur made his
own quaint slang. / remember that any
unclassified object was in his vocabulary
either a ''waSset" or q "dingbat."
He was graduated with his class of 80
and stayed on for years postgraduate
work, which he financed by instruct
ing in physiology. Then he passed to
Cooper Medical College, in San Fran
cisco, where he taught physiology on the
side and where, in 1899, he took his
had married the stately and beautiful
Marguerite Blake, whom he had first
met-just as Herbert Hoover met Lou
Henry-in a Stanford laboratory.
He hung out his Shingle in San Fran
cisco. Practice came fast The Stanford
element stood primarily responsible for
that. Young as he was, he inspired the
confidence which made men willing to
put their lives into his hands. Also, he
was already superb physician. His own
profession was later to put the seal on
that by making him successfully presi-
dent of the American Medical Associa-
ton and of the Association of American
Medical Colleges. He fingered on in San
Francisco until 1908 practicing medi-
cine and teaching physiology at Cooper.
In 1908 he took year in Germany by
way Of finishing of. Shortly afterward
he made what seemed to some of his
friends q short-sighted decision. In
stead Of settling in great city, where
he stood to earn the swollen income of
an eminent practitioner, he opened
practice at Stanford and the growing
adjacent town of Palo Alto. The
scholarly bent of him accounted for
that, suppose and also the pull which
Stanford always had on the imagination
Of its early graduates. And, further, he
may have foreSeen something of his own
future.
Made Medical Dean.
In 1909 he took another year abroad,
polishing Off in Munich and Vienna.
Then Stanford, which had lacked a
medical department.. absorbed old
Cooper and put him in charge as dean,
he being then only 36 years old. He had
a big job of building and reorganiza-
ton, which he did so we'll that within
two years his profession recognized lit
by electing him, as aforesaid, president
Of the American Medical Association.
More pertinently to this story, his &C.
compliShment attracted the attention of
an old friend and fellow alumnus, him
self destined to become world figure in
Observation-Disclosures Hoover, of course.
Hoover, too, had felt the pull Of STAN
ford and established home on the
golden hills above the campus as the
plexus for his rapid darts about the
world; and the university had made him
trustee.
In 1918 DR.. David Starr Jordan re-
tired to the ease and esteem of president
emeritus and John Caspar Branner,
who had SO much to do with the intel
lectual development Of Hoover, took his
place. Branner lived less than three
years, and the trustees, basing their de-
cision on his work with the medical de-
partment, created Wilbur president. He
was then exactly 40-at the time the
youngest university president In the
United States.
He had scarcely gathered up the