The university was opened on the first day of October, 1891, a clear, bright, golden, California day, typical of California October, and full of good omen, as all days in California are likely to be. There were on the opening day 465 students, with only 15 instructors, and the first duty of the president was to telegraph for more teachers, laying tribute on many institutions in the east and in the west.
Two years followed, with their varied adventures, which I need not relate to-day. It was on the twenty-second of June, 1893, that the university community was startled by the sudden death of Leland Stanford.
It is not my purpose now to praise the founder of the university. One single incident at his funeral is firmly fixed in my memory. The clergyman, Horatio Stebbins, in his stately fashion told a story of the Greeks doing honor to a dead hero; then, turning to the pall-bearers, stalwart railway men, he said: "Gentle up your strength a little, for His a man ye bear." A man, in all high senses, in that noblest of words, a man! was Leland Stanford.
After the founder's death, the estate fell into the hands of the courts. The will was in probate, the debts of the estate had to be paid, the various ramifications of business had to be disentangled, and meanwhile came on the fierce panic of 1893. All university matters stopped for the summer. Salaries could not be paid until it was found out by the courts by whom and to whom salaries were due. All incomes from business ceased. There was no such thing as income visible to any one, least of all to the great corporations.
After Governor Stanford's death, Mrs. Stanford kept to her rooms for a week or two. She had much to plan and much to consider. From every point of view of worldly wisdom, it was best to close the university until the estate was settled and in her hands, its debts paid and the panic over. Her own fortune was in the estate itself. Outside of her jewels, she had practically nothing of her own save the community estate, and this could not be hers until the payment of all debts and legacies had been completed. These debts and legacies amounted as a whole to eight millions of dollars. In normal times, there was hardly money enough in California to pay this amount; but these were not normal times, and there was no money in California to pay anything.
After these two weeks, Mrs. Stanford called me to her house to say that the die was cast. She was going ahead with the university. She would let us have whatever money she could get. We must come down to bed rock on expenses, but with the help of the Lord and the memory of her husband, the university would go ahead and fulfil its mission. It was no easy task to do this, as one incident will show. There could be no regularity in the payment of salaries. In the eyes of the law the university professors were Mrs. Stanford's personal servants.
