Speech for opening day

Mr. Preseident Faculty and Students of the Lealnd Stanford Jr. University:

I desire to state that in the few remarks I am about to make I speak for Mrs. Stanford as well as for myself for she has been my active and sympathetic co-adjutor and is co-grantor with me in the endowment and establishment of this University. In its behalf her prayers have gone forth that it may be a benefactor to humanity and receive the blessing of the Heavenly Father.

On the 14th day of May 1887, the corner stone of this quadrangle was laid and on this first day of October 1891 we meet to formally throw open the doors of the institution. Of those present at the laying of the corner stone many are here today but some of them are with us only in spirit and in memory.

For Mrs. Stanford and myself this ceremony marks an epoch in our lives for we see in part the realization of the hopes and efforts of years for you Faculty and Students the work begins now and it is to commemorate this commencement of your labors that we are here assembled.

That which we have bestowed upon the establishment and endowmeant of this Institution we have been more than once advised to turn into other channels. It has several times been suggested to us that there was a limit to the beneficence of education, that that limit has been reached in this county and that the public private and endowed schools and colleges already more than supplied all the needs of the community but we have thought differently. We do not believe there can be superfluous education. As man cannot have too much health and intelligence so he cannot be too highly educated. Where in the discharge of responsible or humble

duties he will ever find the knowledge he has acquired through edcation not only of practical assistance to him but a factor in his personal happiness and a joy forever.

It is through education that the possible future of man is to be ascertained and attained. The Creator has not given man rational wants without the means of supplying them. He has given us an all bountiful earth that yields inexhaustible supplies for our useMen have only to apply their labor intelligently and learn to controll the natural forces that mean surrounded them to have at their commmand all that comforts and elegencies of life. Mans true happiness is to be attained not merely by satisfying his physical wants but in the development of his intellectual moral and religious nature. It is through the expansion and development of these that the high standard which the creator has made possible is to be reached and when this standard is attained the result will be the establishment and general practice of the golden rule and the realization of the greatest happiness. I hope therefor that you will ever keep before you the highest possible standard that you will strive to attain it and fully realize that its attainment is the object of education.

The high condition of civilisation to which man may attain in the future it is impossible for us to appreciate. We can best obtain an idea of it by comparison of our present conedition with that of preceding generations. Nor have we to look very far back. A few years ago within the memory of a majority of the adults here present in the United States whose very existence as a nation was justified by an inspired declaration of human inalienable rights over four millions of humans beings were

held in slavery by mere might. A majority of the people of our country were at the time fully persuaded that the right to ownership of human beings existed by a law which it was bound to sustain by force if necessary.

We believe that a wise system of education will develop a future civilization as much in advance of that of the present as ours is in advance of the condition of the savage. We may always advance towards the infinite.

The wonderful improvements in invention and machinery within the last fifty years by multiplying the power of production have assisted greatly in the advancement of civilization. But for the invention that had done the most for education we must look back four hundred and fifty years to the gigantic and ever increasing force put in motion by Guttenburg the printing press. It has made all later inventions possible and practicable. It has done more for the dissemination of education than the endowments of Harvard John Hopkins or Girard and but for its existence I do not think I should have had occasion to address you today.

Once the great struggle of labor was to supply the necessities of life now but a small portion of our people is so engaged. Food clothing and shelter are common in our country to every provident person excepting of course in occasional accidental cases. The great demand for labor is to supply what may be termed intellectual wants to which there is no limit except that of intelligence of conceive. If all that relations and obligations of man were properly understood it would not be necessary for people to make a burden of labor. The great masses of the toilers now are compelled to perform such an amount of labor makes life

often wearisome. An intelligent system of education would correct this inequality. It would make the humblest laborers work more valuable it would increase both the demand and supply for skilled labor and reduce the number of the non-prducing class. It would dignify labor and ultimately would go far to wipe out the mere distinction of wealth and ancestry. It would achieve a bloodless revolution and establish a Republic of industry merit and learning.

How near or how far we may be from that State we cannot predigit. It seems very far when we contemplate the great standing armies of Europe where over five millions of men or about one to every twelve adult male are marching about with guns on their shoulders to preserve the peace of the nations, while hovering near them is an innumerable force of police to preserve the peace of individuals but when we remember the possibilities of civilization and the power of education we can foresee a time when these soldiers and policemen shall be changed to useful producing citizens engaged in lifting the burdens of the people instead of increasing them. And yet extravagant as are the nations of Europe in standing armies and preparations for ar their extravagance in the waste of labor is still greater. Education by teaching the intelligent use of machinery is the only remedy for such waste.

We have provided in the Articles of Endowment that the education of the sexes shall be equal deeming it of special importance that those who are to be the mothers of the future generation shall be fitted to mould and direct the infantile mind and its most critical period.

A celebrated philosopher has said that the education received by a child in the first five years of its life was more important

then all the rest another states in its first seven years the child receives more ideas than in all its after life. How important therefore is it to have mothers capable of rightly directing the young intelligence.

We have also provided that the benefits resulting from Cooperation shall be freely taught. It is through co-operation that modern progress has been mostly achieved. Co-operative societies bring forth the best capacities the best influences of the individual for the benefit of the whole while the good influences of the many aid the individual.

The intelligent development of the human facilities is necessary to mens happiness and if this be true each individual should if possible have such liberal education as to enable him to understand appreciate and enjoy the knowledge of others. We trust that the education in this Institution will be of such liberal and broad character that all connected with it will have none but the best of feelings towards other Educational Institutions and particularly towards those of this State. We are all working to the same end let us therefor cordially co-operate. The immediate object of this Institution is the personal benefit and advancement of the students but we look beyond to the influence it will exert on the general welfare of humanity.

GENTLEMEN OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES:

The management of the affairs of the Leland Stanford Jr. University will ultimately devolve upon you. Upon you therefore will largely depend its future usefulness and success. We feel assured that you realize this as we do and that you will exercise the same viligance in the discard of your duties as trustees that