have the university not large but choice. There should be no more students than could be well taken care of, no more departments than could be placed in master hands, no teachers to whom the students could not look up as to men whose work and life should be an inspiration to them. The buildings should be beautiful, for to see beautiful things in a land of beauty is one of the greatest elements in the refinement of clean men and women. Great libraries and great collections the university should have, but libraries and collections should be chosen for their fitness in the training of men. And with all the activities of athletics, of scholarly research, of the applications of science to engineering, the spirit of "self-devotion and of self-restraint," by which lives have been "made beautiful and sweet" through all the centuries should rise above all else, dominating the lower aspirations and activities as the great church towers above the red tiles of the lower buildings. But for all this, the Church should exist for men—for the actual men who enter its actual doors—not men for the Church. For this reason, any special alliance with any of the historic churches of Christendom is forever forbidden.
We do not yet see nil these things. Rome was not built in a day, nor Stanford in a century. But as the old pioneers returning now behold in solid stone the dream-castles of their college days, so shall you, Stanford men and women, find here as you come back to future reunions, the university of your dreams, the university of great libraries and noble teachers, the university of the perfect democracy of literature and science, "of self-devotion and of self-restraint," the university in which earnest men and women find the best possible preparation for work in life, the university which sends out men who will make the future of the republic worthy of the glories of its past, the university of the plans and hopes of Leland Stanford, the university of the faith and work and prayer of Jane Lathrop Stanford.
