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136 hence it is that the village church is dedicated to St. Cornély. Pilgrims of all countries flocked to Carnac to invoke the aid of the saint for their ailing beasts, and he, mindful of the aid his cows had given him in his flight, granted their requests. To this day ghosts may be seen at night wandering among the lines of stones, the "soldiers of St. Cornély," while the image of the saint and his cows are carved on the front of the church. The query at once arises, have we here a survival from the old worship of Mithras?


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HE second step in the development of the neuromuscular mechanism is represented by the receptor-effector system, a condition fairly realized in such cœlenterates as the sea-anemones and the jellyfishes and probably recurring in the digestive tubes of the higher metazoans. As an introductory example we may turn to the sea-anemones.

Most sea-anemones (Fig. 1.) are cylindrical animals attached to some firm object by their aboral disks and carrying on their oral disks a ring of tentacles surrounding the mouth. This aperture leads inward through a short gullet to a large, somewhat divided, digestive cavity, the gastrovascular space, which extends throughout the whole interior of the animal even to the tips of its tentacles and is the only cavity within the sea-anemone. The body of the animal is made up of walls of extreme thinness; these walls consist of two layers of cells, an outer one next the sea water, the ectoderm, and an inner one next the gastrovascular space, the entoderm. These two layers are separated by a tough, non-cellular sheet, the supporting lamella.

Unlike sponges, sea-anemones are very responsive to changes in their environment. If a fully expanded Metridium is disturbed by mechanical agitation, it will quickly retract its oral disk, discharge through its mouth the water contained in its gastrovascular cavity, and

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138 finally cover its tentacles and month by puckering in the oral edge of its column. In this contracted state it may remain hours at a time, and when it eventually expands it does so by relaxing its muscles and refilling its body with sea water. A beam of strong sunlight, if thrown upon an expanded Metridium several feet under water, will usually call forth the same contraction as mechanical stimulation does.

When the exterior of a Metridium is tested locally, its receptiveness for certain stimuli is found to be quite diverse. The animal makes no movements when dissolved food-substances are cautiously discharged upon the external surface of its  column, though this very area is sensitive to mechanical stimulation. Precisely the reverse is true of the lips; these organs are easily stimulated by dissolved food-products, but no reaction occurs even when they are punctured by a needle. Both mechanical and chemical stimulation, however, are effective on the tentacles and vigorous responses can be called forth from even distant parts of the body by the application of either of these forms of stimuli to the tentacles. Since these reactions, as just intimated, often involve responses in very different parts of the animal from those to which the stimulus is applied, it follows that we are dealing with a process justly regarded as nervous for transmission in this case is not accompanied with any observable motion. The surface of a sea-anemone may then be pictured as a true receptor surface partly differentiated in different regions for particular classes of stimuli, but not so far specialized that it can be described as made up of sense organs.

An examination of the structure of the ectoderm (Fig. 2) will do much to make clear the mechanism by which the reactions of sea-anemones are carried out. The ectoderm of these animals is a modified epithelium in which three definite layers can be distinguished. The outermost of these forms more than half the thickness of the total layer and is a true columnar epithelium. It contains, in addition to ordinary epithelial cells, gland-cells and nettle-cells, and, what is of more importance to us, sense-cells. These sense-cells are long, narrow bodies whose distal ends are armed with a sensory bristle which, under ordinary conditions, projects into the surrounding sea water and whose proximal ends run out into finely branched, nervous processes which intermingle with similar processes from other cells. The complex made by the interweaving of immense numbers of these processes constitutes the second layer of the ectoderm, the nervous layer, and this layer often contains in addition to the large amount of fibrillar material derived


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Rh from the sense-cells, numerous multipolar ganglion-cells whose processes add to the fibrillar material already mentioned. A careful study of this fibrillar material has recently been made with the result that a true nervous network has been demonstrated in hydroids (Wolff, 1904; Hadzi, 1909), siphonophores (Schaeppi, 1904) and sea-anemones (Wolff, 1904; Groselj, 1909). In the sea-anemones in particular this network appears to be a perfectly continuous and diffuse one, notwithstanding Havetfs previous declaration (1901) to the contrary. The third layer is composed of parallel muscle-fibers that rest against the supporting lamella on one side and are in contact with the nervous network on the other side. The muscle-cells of this layer are much elongated, spindle-shaped cells. These three layers, the epithelial layer, the nervous layer and the muscular layer, constitute the structural elements in the ectodermic neuromuscular mechanism of a sea-anemone.

The nervous type of ectoderm just described covers practically the whole surface of a sea-anemone and has been designated as a diffuse nervous system in contrast to a centralized one. The fact that the nervous layer is more fully developed on the oral disk than elsewhere has given anatomical grounds for the assumption that this portion is a central nervous organ, but, as will be shown later, the physiological evidence in favor of this opinion is so slight that the designation of the nervous system as a diffuse one is more consistent with facts.

From the standpoint of our original analysis, it is quite plain that in the sea-anemones we are dealing with at least two elements of the typical neuromuscular mechanism, namely, receptors as represented by the sense-cells, and effectors as seen in the muscle-fibers. Whether the fibrillar material that intervenes between these two structures represents an adjustor or central apparatus will be discussed after the action of this nervous mechanism has been more fully described.

The feeding habits of the sea-anemones throw considerable light on the physiology of their nervous structures. If particles of meat are dropped on the tentacles of an expanded Metridium, they become entangled in the mucus on these organs and are quickly delivered to the mouth, where they are swallowed. If fragments of clean filter-paper soaked in sea water are similarly dropped on the tentacles, they are usually discharged from the edge of the oral disk without having been brought to the mouth. Thus the animal appears to discriminate between what is good for food and what is not. If, however, pieces of filter-paper soaked with meat juice are put on the tentacles, they are usually swallowed as though the sea-anemone had been deceived. On the basis of these simple experiments a still more striking combination can be devised. If a sea-anemone is provided alternately with pieces of meat and pieces of filter-paper soaked in meat juice it will in the beginning swallow in sequence both materials, but after ten or a dozen


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140 trials it will regularly swallow the meat but usually discard the filter-paper. Thus it would appear that the sea-anemone had detected the deception practised on it in the beginning and had learned to circumvent the experimenter. But further observations show how erroneous this interpretation is. If the experiment just described is performed on a limited group of tentacles on one side of the oral disk and, after the animal has arrived at the stage of discriminating between meat and paper, the experiment is repeated on another and distant group of tentacles, it is found that these tentacles and the part of the mouth next them will accept both meat and paper as the first group did and the same process as was used on this group must be repeated on the second group in order to bring it to the stage of discrimination. Thus it is clear that, however we may regard these acts, Metridium shows no marked power of making the experience of one part of its body serve another; in other words, it shows no decided evidence of a central nervous organ.

This conclusion is in substantial accord with the recent results obtained by Fleure and Walton (1907) from experiments on Actinia except that they believe that the repeated trials on the tentacles of one side of the circle had in this form a slight influence on those of the other. This influence, however, was so slight that they declared that experience of this kind certainly did not become the possession of the animal as a whole.

Not only is there in these reactions absence of any strong evidence in favor of well-marked central nervous functions in anemones, but it is very doubtful if we are justified in regarding the local reaction just described as a true discrimination. Jennings (1905) has suggested that sea-anemones possess sensations of hunger and that as the experiment proceeds the animal's hunger diminishes and it finally discards when less hungry what it at first accepted. But Allabach (1905) has shown that the same so-called discrimination is arrived at if the sea-anemone is not allowed to swallow anything, but is robbed of meat and paper alike by having these materials picked out of its gullet just as they are about to be swallowed. In fact it seems quite clear that this process of apparent discrimination is in no sense due to centralized nervous functions, but is merely the result of exhaustion. At the beginning of each experiment the receptors are stimulated by the strong juices of the meat and the weaker juice of the paper. As they run down in efficiency, they come to a stage where they no longer react to the weaker stimulus of the paper and respond only to the meat. At this stage apparent discrimination takes place.

Not only do these experiments show no evidence of central nervous functions, but they indicate a decided looseness of nervous articulation. The activity of one side of the body of the sea-anemone has very little,


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Rh if any, influence on the other side. Moreover, the fact of intimate local relations between nerve and muscle, as seen in the anatomy of these animals, supports the idea of neuromuscular independence instead of centralized relations. This is well exemplified in the reactions of the tentacles. If a tentacle of Metridium is stimulated by food, it turns and twists irregularly and then points toward the mouth. If the same tentacle is cut off and held filled with water so that its original relations in the animal as a whole can be kept in mind, it will be found to react to food as it formerly did, in that it will finally turn toward that side which was originally next the mouth. Hence we may conclude that the tentacle has within itself all that is necessary by way of neuromuscular mechanism for its characteristic reactions and is not dependent for these on such other parts of the sea-anemone as have been regarded as central nervous organs. Physiologically as well as anatomically the sea-anemone seems to possess a diffuse rather than a centralized nervous system, and its neuromuscular mechanism consists of receptors and effectors connected by a nervous net which is composed partly of the nervous processes of the receptor cells and partly of similar processes from ganglion cells.

The type of neuromuscular mechanism found in the sea-anemones probably also recurs in the digestive tube of vertebrates. This view is supported not only by the action of the intestine, but also by its structure (Fig. 3). Omitting for the moment the outer serous layer and the inner mucous layer of the intestine, both of which have little or nothing directly to do with its neuromuscular mechanism, there are left the outer or longitudinal muscular layer, followed internally by a nervous layer, Auerbach's plexus, which in turn is followed by the


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142 cular muscles on which rests a second nervous layer, Meissner's plexus. Each plexus, so far as is known, is a true nervous net as intimately related to the adjacent muscle fibers as is the case of the sea-anemones. In fact one of the muscle layers and the adjacent plexus in the intestine reproduce very accurately all the essentials of the neuromuscular mechanism of a sea-anemone except the epithelial sense-cells.

Not only is there this anatomical similarity between the neuromuscular mechanisms of the sea-anemone and of the vertebrate intestine, but there is also a physiological similarity as seen in the movements of the digestive tube. The essentials of these movements are well exemplified in the small intestine. In this part of the digestive tube the characteristic movements are segmentation and peristalsis. Segmentation consists in a series of temporary, ring-like constrictions in the intestinal wall that come and go in such a way that the enlarged region of the tube between any two constrictions is the site of the constriction next to appear, and so on. As a result of segmentation, the food is most thoroughly churned and mixed. Peristalsis is a wave-like movement whereby the food is carried posteriorly through the intestine. Usually these two movements go on together in such a way that the peristalsis is combined with segmentation in that the latter becomes somewhat unsymmetrical and cuts each food mass into two unequal parts the larger of which is on the posterior side of the constriction. Hence the food is not only churned but is at the same time moved posteriorly through the intestine.

The small intestine receives nerve-fibers from two extraneous sources, the vagus and the splanchnic nerves, and it might be supposed that these were essential for the movements of the intestine. But as Cannon (1906) has demonstrated, both sets of nerves may be cut, and yet after recovery from the immediate effects of the operation segmentation and peristalsis will be found to go on in the digestive tube in an essentially natural manner. It is thus clear that the vertebrate intestine, like the tentacle of a sea-anemone, contains a complete neuromuscular mechanism within its own wall, and though there is no histological evidence of the presence of receptors reaching from the mucous surfaces of the intestine to the nervous nets within, yet there are sound physiological grounds for assuming the presence of such organs. In that case the type of neuromuscular mechanism in the intestine would be practically identical with that in the sea-anemone.

A second example of a receptor-effector system in ccelenterates is seen in the jellyfishes. In these animals as contrasted with the seaanemones, locomotion is a well-developed activity, and it is the neuromuscular mechanism concerned with this function that must be considered. The structures involved in locomotion are well exemplified in Aurelia (Fig. 4). This common jellyfish possesses on the edge of


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Rh its bell eight clusters of sense-organs. Each cluster contains an ocellus, two sensory pits that are probably concerned with the chemical sense, and a sense-club which may be a pressure organ. The sensory portions of all these organs are modified ectoderm and from these portions nervefibers pass out as radiating bundles to the ectoderm of the subumbrellar surface. Here they merge into a nervous net which overlies the ectodermic musculature as in the sea-anemones. This musculature forms a circular sheet concentrically disposed with reference to the symmetry of the jellyfish. When the bell of an Aurelia is pulsing, the movement is carried out by the more or less general contraction of this circular band of muscle, which is brought back to its original position on relaxation by the elasticity of the gelatinous mass of the bell. The locomotor muscle, then, is a gigantic sphincter that works against an elastic resistance.

The significance of the various parts of the neuromuscular mechanism in such an animal as Aurelia can be determined by experiment. If the eight sense-bodies are removed, the animal will no longer pulse spontaneously, though its muscles may be made to contract by direct stimulation. If all but one sense-body are removed, the bell will pulse with regularity and by artificially stimulating the single remaining body a wave of muscular contraction can be sent over it. It is therefore evident that the sense-bodies act like extremely delicate triggers and thus touch off the contractile mechanism. In this respect, then, the jellyfish is more highly developed than the sea-anemone, for the latter possesses no such specialized and delicate receptors.

The wave of contraction that passes over a bell when one of its sense-bodies is stimulated, may be either a purely muscular phenomenon or may be the result of nervous transmission through the nervous net whereby one region after another of the musculature is brought into action. The fact that this wave is not checked when the bell is cut even in a most irregular way provided the subumbrellar epithelium is still continuous, favors the nervous rather than the muscular interpretation. But stronger evidence on the nervous side than this has come from an entirely different direction. Mayer (1906) has shown that the subumbrellar epithelium of Cassiopea after removal will readily


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144, and that in regeneration the nervous net forms earlier than the muscles. By taking jellyfishes at the appropriate stage in regeneration, it was found that a stimulus applied to one side of a regenerated area was followed by a muscular response on the other side of this area without any observable movement in the area itself. Hence transmission through the regenerated region must have been by nervous means, doubtless by the nervous net.

In jellyfishes the nervous net will transmit apparently in any direction and in this respect it is in strong contrast with the central nervous organs of the higher metazoans, where, especially in the vertebrates, a polarized condition generally prevails. Thus in the spinal nerves of vertebrates, it is easy to send impulses through from a dorsal root to a ventral one, but impossible to send them in the reverse direction. Apparently the cord contains some structure on its path of conduction that is valve-like and allows impulses to pass in one direction only. Such a condition does not exist in the nervous net of the jellyfishes.

The neuromuscular organs of the coelenterates have been considered by so many investigators as the most primitive in the animal, kingdom that it is not inappropriate to consider at this place the relations of some of the older views on this subject to those expressed in these articles.

The discovery by Kleinenberg (1872) of the so-called neuromuscular cells (Fig. 5) in Hydra led this investigator to the belief that these cells represented a complete neuromuscular apparatus in that each cell-body could be regarded as a receptor and its fibrous portion as an effector. By growth and cell division, according to Kleinenberg, separate receptors and effectors would be differentiated simultaneously from such single cells.

The simultaneous differentiation of nervous and muscular elements (Fig. 6) was also accepted by the brothers Hertwig (1878), but in their opinion the two types of tissue did not arise from a common cell as claimed by Kleinenberg, but from separate cells which became simultaneously differentiated, some to form nerve-cells (sense-and ganglion cells) and others to form muscle-cells. This view has come to be commonly accepted by the majority of investigators.

The independent origin of the nervous system and its secondary


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ANDWRITING, bearing as it does the cachet of individuality, has always interested those to whom things human make their intimate appeal. Curious observations relative to it have long been current, the existence, for instance, of national as well as family and personal chirographics; the perversions of it that take form as mirror writing or even—it is said—as inverted writing; the whimsy shown by the bizarre characters, by the tendency to irrelevant and extravagant flourishes in the writing of those suffering from certain forms of mental disorder. Attention has been called to the similarity existing between a man's handwriting and the manner in which he walks or gesticulates. It has been claimed that age and sex and profession leave their impress upon writing, that the pencraft of the painter mirrors minutely the grace and distinction that marks the sweep of his brush across the canvas. Carried out boldly such speculations venture even the claim that the handwriting of any individual would be found to resemble the characteristic tracings shown by his pulse and respiration and fatigue curves. Nor is the interest in the variational aspect of handwriting restricted to recording the diversities in penmanship from individual to individual; it is also engaged in noting variations from day to day in the handwriting of any given person under the influence of fatigue or emotion or disease. But, however numerous, such observations and however legitimate the speculations they engender, it remains for the physiologist and the psychologist, with the aid perhaps of the sociologist, to compass the scientific study of the variational factor in handwriting.

The ground, however, has been broken. As has frequently been the case in the history of research, the claims of a pseudo-science, at once provocative and suggestive, have stimulated inquiry. In this case, graphology, the art that would find in handwriting revelations of intelligence and character, has been the direct cause of a series of investigations. On the other hand, modern psychological theory with its increasing emphasis upon behavior, upon the motor aspects of life, could not long ignore the opportunity for study presented by this most complicated and subtle act of individual expression.

Two lines of investigation have accordingly been inaugurated by the


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148 psychologist; the one interested in the functional significance of the act of writing as the expression of individuality; the other interested in a minute analysis of this motor series, seeking to determine the laws of expression that govern this particular act. In both investigations methods of research are being worked out with the ingenuity so characteristic of scientists of to-day. Each investigation as it progresses will be found to encroach upon the other. From the two will come the future science of handwriting. A résumé of the work that has already been done has perhaps its value at the present time.

First of all it may be profitable to consider the investigations that have sought to determine under scientific control whether or not the graphologists have made good their claims. It is to France that we owe, not only the most carefully wrought-out system of graphology, but also the most carefully thought-out control of that art. In an investigation covering many months, Alfred Binet, the director of the psychological laboratory at the Sorbonne, planned and executed a series of carefully controlled experiments designed to test the ability of the graphologists to determine from handwriting the sex, the age, the intelligence and the character of the writer. Binet, who guarded carefully against all sources of error, so planned his experiments as to be able to state in figures the percentage of error in the interpretations of the graphologists and thus render possible a comparison of the graphologists' successes with those that might reasonably be expected if chance alone determined the outcome. The results showed unmistakably that the graphologist was able to determine with but a small percentage of error the sex of the writer and also, but with less certainty, the intelligence of the writer. The interpretation of age and character offered still greater difficulties. To render the tests perfectly definite and to avoid the error that might arise from the personal equation in estimation of intelligence and character, Binet in his tests upon them made use, on the one hand, of the handwriting of men famous in literature and science and, on the other hand, of specimens of the handwriting of great criminals, whose biographies were matter of legal record.

Binet's investigation, apart from his general conclusions, brought out some interesting facts. He found, for instance, that there existed not only very great differences in the skill with which different graphologists made their interpretations, but also that there were those uninitiated in the art whose readings at times even the professional graphologist might envy. An observation akin, in a way, to the common experience that some people remember and recognize handwritings, as others do faces, with extraordinary facility and accuracy. Minute differences have for them undoubtedly a value not experienced by others. Binet found, moreover, that the professional's skill in


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Rh diagnosis far outran his ability to ground his judgment on definite graphic signs. His reading was the translation into words of a general impression, somewhat similar, we may assume, to that received by the skilled reader of the human countenance. Moreover, in at least one instance, and that in the case of a non-professional, the judgments, based on intuitions, that is, non-reasoned-out impressions, were achieved in a state of passivity that we are familiar with as characteristic of automatic activities of different sorts.

Accepting these results, the investigation is obviously only well initiated, for one is next anxious to press home the question that asks the cause of such differences. It is not enough, for instance, to know that Binet's graphologists were able under highly favorable conditions to distinguish in ninety per cent, of the tests the sex of the writer; it is not enough to know that, to a certain extent, they were able to base their judgments upon the presence or absence of certain graphic signs; one would also know in detail what determines each sign of sex, whether at the last they are due, as Binet himself asks, to profound physiological or psychological causes, or, rather, are the outcome of the social environment so different in the case of the two sexes.

We are here brought face to face with the old question that has confronted all investigators of sex-differences. It is evident, however, that the question of the social environment is, in this instance, a controlling one not merely in the discussion of the revelation of sex in handwriting, but also in that of the revelation of intelligence; for there exists a peculiar environment for talent as well as for sex. Indeed, it appears that the investigation of handwriting must be sociopsychological in nature. Unconscious imitation, social suggestibility doubtless play an important, if not all-important, part in determining writing characteristics. On the whole, therefore, it is not surprising that the experts were more successful in distinguishing marked differences in intelligence than in determining the nature of the individual superiority. They perceived the class characteristic, as it were.

The overlapping of the writer's environments, social and professional, must farther complicate the matter. The cases cited by Binet of writing that gave evidence of reversion of signs: the writing, for instance, of a young woman scientist that the graphologists unanimously judged to emanate from a man, or the handwriting of a man like Kenan that the graphologists marked as coming from a man of inferior mental ability are of particular interest in this connection. Such cases would probably repay a detailed investigation not only of the psychology of the individual, but also of his environmental history.

It is, perhaps, because character, within certain limits, does not produce segregation of classes that the experts showed little accuracy in their judgments of moral qualities from handwriting. Their failure,


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150 for instance, to find in the handwriting of a young woman murderer, who was of some social position, evidence of more than feminine instability and coquetry is instructive; for the case was an aggravated one of the murder, by poisoning, of three innocent victims—husband, grandmother and brother—for the sake of trifling gain.

A further control of these experiments, an attempt to diminish the masking effect of class-imitativeness, might be achieved by international work, by tests involving the discovery of similar graphic signs in the writing of individuals separated by race and training. A repetition of Binet's test as to the possibility of distinguishing sex-differences might be of value in this country where sex-segregation in education is much less pronounced than it is in France.

Other sociological aspects of handwriting might no doubt be investigated. The variation in individual chirography due to the nature of the letter written, be it of social import or a business note; the change in penmanship that comes with the change of the relation of the writer to the one addressed—all such observations, vague as they are at present, merit consideration. Most suggestive of all is the shift in style that comes when the writer addresses his own eye alone, yielding himself to the fervor of composition or the mental dissipation of being "off parade." But observations under such conditions must at best be made stealthily. A hint at the possibility Of the intrusion of one's mental privacy and, conscience or vanity on the alert again, one's writing hastens to resume its conventional legibility.

The revelations of the autograph as a mental photograph, a graphic representation of social relationships, have never been fully appreciated by the sociologist, although the world at large has always accepted a famous man's autograph as secondary in interest to his photograph alone. The pretense, the dignity, the reserve, the finesse with which one faces the world finds copy in the ostentation, the simplicity, or the ambiguity with which one signs one's name. Indifferent though one may be in penmanship in general, there is something intimate and personal in the autograph that arrests one's interest, so that in the somewhat fantastic world of images, of symbols, it often happens that one adopts a mental picture of his own autograph as the official representative of himself in the counsels of thought.

In any case it is evident that there is a psychology as well as a sociology of handwriting. Tremendously complicated as the problem of diagnosis of individual traits from those tiny strokes of the pen appears, it is yet a legitimate problem of science; for the more progress psychology makes, the more evident it becomes that there is not a mode of expression which is not rooted to its finest detail in the complex psycho-physical organism. Meanwhile, it is fortunate that the task of identifying graphic signs should not be left wholly to the


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Rh intuitions of the graphologist. Experimental work that seeks to induce variation in writing through a control of outer conditions must in time correlate certain definite variations in conditions with variation in such aspects of writing as size, speed, accuracy in alignment, inequality of control and the like.

The experimental investigations, spoken of above, have attacked the problem at this point. Abandoning any attempt to deal with the more complicated aspects of chirography as an expression of individuality, they have confined themselves to an accurate analysis of such factors as speed of movement and its variations; the length and significance of writing-pauses; measurement of pressure and its variations; comparison of the accuracy of control for right and left hand; elimination of visual control; minute analysis of finger, wrist and arm movements involved in handwriting, with an assignment to each of its rôle. Such an investigation, so far as it confines itself to mere analysis, is obviously but a part of the general investigation of voluntary action. But the discovery of methods of accurately registering minute variations in writing speed, pressure, amplitude and musculature is necessarily preliminary to an accurate determination of the correlation between particular psychic traits and their expression graphically.

An illustration of what may be expected from the perfecting of the technique of registration of speed, pressure and amplitude of writing is to be found in the report of a piece of work carried out some years ago in a German laboratory, where it was discovered that increased difficulty in mental work showed itself in written expression by increased pressure or by decrease in the size of the written characters. The former way of meeting the difficulty seemed to be characteristic of men; the latter, characteristic of women.

Variation in the amplitude of written characters involves doubtless many important considerations relative to the facilitation and inhibition of movement. Writing with attention preoccupied or distracted results variously in the enlargement or dwarfing of characters, an alternative result that seems to depend upon deep-seated tendencies of the individual. If, as facts apparently show, the individual who is the more automatic in his activities responds to distraction with an increase in the size of characters used; while one less automatic, one whose attention—though sometimes in a maimed condition—is always at the helm, gives evidence of the mental difficulty by a decrease in amplitude, a decrease that bears witness to the inhibition at work, then a very simple test is at hand by means of which individuals may be grouped under the two types that have been labeled, somewhat ambiguously, motor and sensory. If it should be shown further that this difference cuts through all the mental activities of the human being, progress would have been made in the difficult matter of the classification of mental types.


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152 Whatever more extended observations may show, the writer of this paper has found it a very simple matter to pick out individuals who will make good subjects for muscle-reading—an experiment that succeeds best with those whose movements are most automatic—by a preliminary test in which the subject, blindfolded, is required to write his name rapidly in sequence while counting aloud by a given interval, say by 13's. The writing of those individuals who would serve best in the proposed test shows a progressive enlargement and, moreover, characteristic pen-lapses.

The question may then be raised whether such difference in mental type reveals itself in normal handwriting, and an affirmative answer seems not presumptuous, although a detailed study of handwriting from this standpoint has not, so far as the writer knows, been instituted experimentally. It should be noted, however, that in the thought process which accompanies writing during composition, momentary distractions occur frequently, for thought, even in the case of rapid penmen, is apt to run ahead of the writing. Who does not number among his correspondents those whose final letters trail off into an indistinguishable scrawl; and others who end with a flourish that marks well the motor abandon? Characteristic revelations, no doubt, although interpretation as yet must be exceedingly diffident.

It is interesting to note in this connection the interpretation graphologists put upon the size of writing as indicative of individual traits. Distinction, power, frankness, honesty are held to reveal themselves by magnified writing either throughout writing as a whole or at the termination of words. Minute writing throughout or at the close of words is held to indicate, in the case of superior intelligence, artifice or preoccupation with metaphysical or other minutæ; in the case of inferior minds, miserliness. Usually, the graphologists emphasize legibility of terminal letters as highly indicative of frankness; while, on the other hand, the tendency to terminate letters in filiform fashion as evidence of a veiling of self. Mere exhibition of documents from persons of known characteristics seems, it must be said, inadequate proof of such propositions. Variations from the normal in the handwriting of any individual would under defined conditions be of more value for general interpretative purposes than would variation from one person to another. Nor can facile analogies appear worthy of serious attention until the causal relation between certain temperamental traits and the facilitation or inhibition of movement is better understood.

The attempt to study handwriting in the light of psychological analyses already in progress bids fair to help analysis, as well as to increase our knowledge of the psychology of handwriting. The relation of the inner word to the outer visible one has long interested


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Rh psychologists and pathologists, particularly in connection with the investigation of agraphia, that is, loss or impairment of the power to write. But the interest in such difficulties has centered largely in the fact that study of them might contribute to the physiological problem of the localization of cerebral function. If more than this, the interest has usually limited itself to an analysis of the situation in sensory terms; the details of the resulting expression have been but little studied. The growing interest in the psychology of lapses, both linguistic and graphic, and the development of a technique for such study is of great promise. In the case of the graphic lapse there is need not merely of the tabulation of what kind of errors are made, but also a reproduction of the writing in which the errors are found. Will such writing show characteristic variations in amplitude, pressure, and the like?

Even apart from the question as to the effect of a "hitch" in the process upon the appearance of writing, we may ask whether the general appearance and characteristics of writing are affected by the type of thought-process normal for any given individual. An intensive study of imagery types has always recognized, although with considerable divergence of opinion as to details, the varieties of the word-image. The word mentally seen or heard, spoken or written, has been found to play an important part in the complex thought-processes that underlie the consciousness of meaning and the possibility of its expression. The question of significance here is how far one sort of verbal imagery is potent in initiating the written word of any individual and whether any difference in written gesture marks off the individual who habitually indulges himself in visual imagery from the man who is more motor in type or more dependent upon auditory images.

Back even of this question lies the more deep-cutting one of the significance to the whole mental life of the predominance of the sensations, perceptions and images of a ruling sense. At what point and to what extent in the process of learning to write does the visual-motor coordination fall under the ruling sense and what effect has such subordination upon the general appearance and character of the resulting chirography? One feels certain that the handwriting of the man visually inclined must differ ^om that of the man preoccupied with motor details, but is unable to specify the difference. Yet the problem does not remain insoluble, for there are simple methods of determining the part played by each sense in control of the writing of any individual. Accompanying sensations such as those of sight and sound may be eliminated from the situation and the effect noted; or conflict with visual or auditory or motor images may be introduced and the results recorded. The investigation of the varieties of writing-control with the relation of each to writing-appearance offers a tempting field for work. But here speculation must wait upon the facts.


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154 In such an investigation, however, that peculiar perversion of writing known as mirror-writing, because legible only when seen in a mirror or in transparency, may be utilized experimentally. The fact, on the one hand, that many left-handed children write in such a fashion from the first; and, on the other hand, that right-side paralytics, forced to the use of the left hand often resort spontaneously to such a form in their written communications has brought it about that the investigation of mirror-writing has been in the past largely turned over to those whose interests were either pedagogical or pathological, and has led to the conclusion that mirror-writing is either the normal writing for the left hand of all individuals or the normal writing for the left hand of the left-handed only. An examination of the evidence cited in support of these propositions or a discussion of the explanations that are used to ground them is not now in place. What is of interest is the insistence upon the need of further experimental work on induced mirror-writing with the hope of getting more light upon the relation here involved between the written characters and their visual significance. For the first question that arises is this: How can mirror-writing prove visually satisfactory, however "motorly" comfortable? And the answer to this question involves the whole problem of the relation of visual and motor control. It is probable that artificially induced mirror-writing is a simple device for determining to what extent the divorce between motor and visual control has resulted in the case of any one individual.

But the relation of handwriting to emotional temperament, as well as its relation to imagery types, merits consideration. Variation in expression under emotional disturbance has long been a special subject of experiment. Little attempt, however, has been made to compare the results so obtained with the appearance of writing under emotional tension. To be sure, the graphologists cite a tendency to elevate progressively the line of writing as an evidence of mental exaltation, of joy or ambition, while a fall in the alignment is indicative of the depressive emotions, self-distrust, sadness, melancholy. Again, a strongly marked tendency toward centrifugal or centripetal movements is held to indicate, on the one hand, ardor, simplicity, activity, uprightness, and, on the other hand, slowness, lack of spontaneity, egoism. These observations, if confirmed, need to be brought into definite correlation with the results obtained in experimental work; and in this connection the graphologists do appeal to the experimental interpretation of movements of expansion and of flexion.

Again, the observation seems in point that variations from the normal in the handwriting of any individual are, under defined conditions, of more value for general interpretative purposes than is variation from one individual to another. Some attempts to induce


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Rh, by means of hypnotic suggestion or provisional deceit, changes in the mood or even in the personality of a given reagent have indeed been tried in France. The results, although striking and interesting are somewhat general in nature nor is the method beyond criticism.

The dependence of style of writing upon suggestion has already been spoken of in emphasizing the rôle social suggestion plays in determining writing-types. Experimental work may investigate the influence of this factor. An incident in which a friend of the present writer, in signing the latter name to a lecture-ticket, unconsciously imitated the writer's signature shows how extensively suggestion may operate. Reports of the character of writing during hypnosis offer material for study. Detailed reports as to the characteristic appearance of such writing are, however, wanting.

Professor Janet, of the Collège de France, urges, and with reason, that experimental graphology should begin with studies in pathological graphology, studies on the effect upon handwriting of diseases of motility and sensibility, or of specific diseases, such as those of respiration and of circulation. From the more pronounced modifications of handwriting transitions may then be made to its more delicate inflections.

This recourse to pathology bids fair to prove increasingly fruitful. Physicians have long been aware of profound modifications of handwriting through disease and have utilized such modifications in diagnosis. Considerable material has been collected and published by them in connection with their discussions of insanity, hysteria, epilepsy, paralysis and the like. Their interest has been, however, often practical rather than theoretical, and it is only with the increasing interest in the specific problem of handwriting that the full value of their documents becomes evident. Moreover, the failure to record in a particular instance specimens of the normal as well as of the perverted writing is often regrettable. Experimental work upon pathological writing has, however, already been resorted to in the attempt to determine the changes in writing induced by the use of alcohol and various other drugs.

A highly interesting case of pathological writing is that known as automatic writing, writing of which the writer is either not conscious at all or else conscious only of the movement and its result without feeling in any way responsible for the act. In connection with such automatic writing one would like to have not only an analysis of the mental state, but also detailed information of the variation from the normal in terms of speed, amplitude, alignment and pressure of writing. It is worth noting that Professor Janet has published examples of mediumistic writing, and that Dr. Prince, in his recent book on "The Dissociation of Personality," has reproduced the handwriting of a secondary personality.


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156 Much work to-day still needs to be done in the collection, according to well-formulated plans, of material for the study of handwriting. In the matter of family resemblances in chirography, for instance, there is scarcely any material at hand, a fact not surprising since such work of collection must needs run over years. An instructive series of family autographs would be one showing handwriting at different periods of development. Any resemblance here in the handwriting at the same period of life of individuals differing considerably in age would testify directly to hereditary motor tendencies of some fineness, since suggestibility as a contributing cause would be ruled out.

Doubtless the day is far in the future when we shall be able to solve such historic enigmas as Mary, Queen of Scots, by an appeal as Tarde, the French sociologist, suggests, to her handwriting; or be proficient enough in the art of interpretation to proffer our services, as other enthusiasts predict, to the benevolent advocates of scientific match-making; but such suggestions carry with them a faith in the interpretation of this finest, subtlest of movements which time will perhaps justify. Nor will a scientific interpretation of individual chirography come merely to gratify an idle curiosity or a secret malice. It will be of immense value. All the arts remedial and educative will have need of it. Physician and educator, criminologist and sociologist, will make their appeal to it. Strange, if in time these tiny written gestures should be found to be all-revealing; if in them should be found the most intimate expression of the dramatic instinct.


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AM to tell you to-day the story of a noble life, of one of the bravest, wisest, most patient, most courageous and most devout of all the women who have ever lived. I want to give to those of the university to whom its founders are but a memory some lasting picture of the woman who saved the university, which she and her honored husband founded in faith and hope, and who thus made possible the education you are receiving. I want to make my story as impersonal as I can, as though I spoke not for myself but for all of you, men and women of Stanford, with all gratitude towards the many who have helped in the great work, and with all charity towards those whose interests or whose conscientious convictions ranged them on the other side. If I am successful, you will see more clearly than ever before the lone, sad figure of the mother of the university, strong in her trust in God and in her loyalty to her husband's purposes, happy only in the belief that in carrying out her husband's plans for training the youth of California in virtue and usefulness she was acting the part to which she was assigned.

We have often said that Stanford University belongs to the Stanford students. It was the free gift of the founders, man and woman that were, to the students, the men and women that were to be. It is your university, yours and yours only, as once it was theirs.

But we must not interpret this gift too narrowly. It is not yours, you students of to-day, to have or to hold in any exclusive way. The university belongs to all the students, those who have been here, some ten thousand in all, those who are here to-day, seventeen hundred more or less, and those who are to come. Before these we count as nothing, for the students to come will number for each century about a hundred thousand. And there are many of these centuries, for the world is still very young, and a university once firmly rooted is as nearly eternal as human civilization itself can be. The university stands for the highest thought and wisest action possible for man, and the need of a university must endure so long as man exists; and that will be for a very long time. Man is bounded by the limits of space, but the race once established on this planet of ours, we see no limit of time, no prospect of a


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158 twilight of gods in which the darkness shall fall on the world because universities are no longer needed. The center of gravity of Stanford University, of its student body, and of its influence on civilization, is hundreds of years, thousands of years ahead.

To the students of to-day, the professors of to-day, and the trustees of to-day, the university to-day belongs, but not as a personal possession; only as a sacred trust. It is our first duty to see that its good name and its good work are kept untarnished and unimpaired. It is for the students to see that no custom of idleness or of dissipation, no fashion of cynicism or of disloyalty ever becomes hardened into a tradition at Stanford University. It is for the professors to strengthen them in this decision, and to point out the best that men have ever thought or done, to lead the way to gentle breeding and the enthusiasm of noble thought. Now, as ever, "the university must welcome every ray of varied genius to its hospitable halls," that their combined influences may "set the heart of the youth in flame." It is for the Board of Trustees and for the university executive to act as the balance wheel, guarding jealously the funds of the institution, that the generous present may not starve the future, and to see that no neglect or perversity of student or teacher shall work any permanent harm to the university whole. For the university must ever be infinitely greater than the sum of all its parts. For its largest part is never present for our measurement, and this part we can not measure is the sum of all its future influence.

This university was founded on love in a sense which is true of no other. Its corner-stone was love—love of a boy extended to the love of the children of humanity. It was continued through love—the love of a noble woman for her husband; the faith of both in love's ideals—and as an embodiment of the power of love Stanford University stands to-day.

It is fitting that these statements should not stand as mere words. I wish that in your hearts they may become realities. Not many of you as students have seen Mrs. Stanford. The last of the freshmen classes which she knew shall graduate as seniors a few weeks hence. None of you have known Leland Stanford, broad-minded, stout-hearted, shrewd, kindly, and full of hope, a man of action ripened into a philosopher. Our university has now reached its eighteenth year. During the first two years of its history, it was the hopeful experiment of Leland Stanford. The next six years its story was that of the heart throbs of Jane Lathrop Stanford, and the ten years following, with all their vicissitudes, have been years of calmness and certainty, for the final outcome is no longer open to question.

It is my purpose this evening to tell a little of the story of the six dark years, the years from eighteen ninety-three to eighteen ninety-nine, those days in which the future of a university hung by a single


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Rh thread, but that thread the greatest thing in the world, the love of a good woman. If for an instant in all these years this good woman had wavered in her purposes, if for a moment she had yielded to fear or even to the pressure of worldly wisdom,-you and I would not have been here to-day. The strain, the agony, was all hers, and hers the final victory. And so any account of these years must take the form of eulogy. Eulogy, in its old Greek meaning is speaking well, and my every word to-day must be a word of praise. It is proper, too, that I should speak these words, and even that I should give this history from my own standpoint, because there were few besides myself who knew the facts in those days. Most of these facts even it is well for all of us to forget. For the rest, the facts in issue will appear only as needed for the background, before which we may see the figure of Mrs. Stanford.

I first saw the Governor and Mrs. Stanford at Bloomington, Indiana, in March, 1891. At that time, Governor Stanford, under the advice of Andrew D. White, the President of Cornell, asked me to come to California to take charge of the new institution which he was soon to open. He told me the story of their son, of their buried hopes, of their days and nights of sorrow, and of how he had once awakened from a troubled night with these words on his lips: "The children of California shall be my children." He told me the extent of his property and of his purposes in its use. He hoped to build a university of the highest order, one which should give the best of teaching in all its departments, one which should be the center of invention and research, giving to each student the secret of success in life. No cost was to be spared, no pains to be avoided, in bringing this university to the highest possible effectiveness.

In all this Mrs. Stanford was most deeply interested, supporting his purposes, guarding his strength, alert at every point, and always in the fullest sympathy.

Mr. Stanford explained that thus far only buildings and land had been given, but that practically the whole of the common estate would go in time to the university, when the founders had passed away. If he should himself survive, the gift would be his and hers jointly, though the final giving would be left to him. If the wife should survive, the property would be hers, and in her hands would lie the final joy of giving. Mr. Stanford gave his reason for not turning over the property at once, for this might leave his wife no controlling part in the future. It was not his wish that she should sit idly by while others should create the university. So long as she lived, it was his wish that the building of the university should be her work.

This attitude of chivalry in all this needs this word of explanation, for it shaped the whole future history of the university endowment. It was the source of some of the embarrassments which followed, and perhaps as well of the final success.


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160 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.


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Rh As such, it was finally arranged that they receive a special allowance from the estate. This allowance as household servants paid their salaries, and a registration tax of twenty dollars per year on each student had to cover all other expenses. But these two sources of income did not come at once, and the great farms run as experiment stations were centers of loss and not of income.

A single incident will make this condition vivid.

At one time in August, 1893, Mrs. Stanford received from Judge Coffey's court the sum of $500 to be paid to her household servants. It was paid in a bag of twenty-five twenty dollar gold pieces. Mrs. Stanford called me in and said her household servants could wait; there might be some professors in need, and I might divide the money among them. I put the money under my pillow, and did not sleep that night. Money was no common thing with us then. Next morning, on Sunday, I set out to give ten professors fifty dollars apiece. I found not one who could give change for a twenty dollar gold piece, and so I made it forty dollars and sixty dollars.

The same afternoon after I had gone the rounds $13,000 was brought down from the city for us other household servants. This sum was distributed, and then Mrs. Stanford sent word that as we had some money now perhaps we could spare her the $500. I drew a check for the sum against a long-vanished bank account, and covered the amount in the morning with the aid of some of my associates.

This incident again will explain why for six years the professors were paid by personal checks of the president, and why these were not always issued regularly, nor for the full amounts. We were all struggling together to be able to issue them at all. There was no certainty ahead of us. Most of the property was of such a character that it could not be divided, but must go in blocks of millions, if it went at all, and no one with millions at his disposal seemed inclined to invest it anywhere. The estate held a one fourth interest in the Southern Pacific System, and of all its many ramifications. Kept together, it could maintain itself, but if any division were made the smaller part might be subject to the process known as "freezing out."

I pass by many minor incidents of struggle and economy. The farms had to be abruptly closed, and then to be made to yield an income. This required wise management and rigid economy at the same time, but for all this Mrs. Stanford proved adequate. She learned her lessons as she went along, and came to take a wholesome pleasure in the Spartan simplicity of her life. If all else failed, there were the jewels to fall back upon; and she steadily refused to consider the advice (almost unanimous) of her counsel to close the university or most of its departments until some more favorable time. In 1895 she invited the pioneer class, then graduating, to a reception in her city home, one reason being that it was the last class that could ever


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. We had nothing to run on, save the precarious servant allowance, then fixed at $12,500 per month, and liable to be cut to nothing at any day. Our expenses for 1893 had been nearly $18,000 per month. Sometimes we could sell a few horses from the stock farm, but it was never clear that the stock farm belonged to the university and not to the Stanford estate, and every dollar we gained this way piled up the possibilities of litigation. All these days were brightened by the steady support of her friends and advisers, Samuel F. Leib, Timothy Hopkins and Russell Wilson. Mr. Hopkins furnished the Library of Biology and paid unasked many minor expenses, his left hand not taking receipts for what his right hand was doing. No one can tell how much the university owes to these men, who in the darkest days planned to make the future possible. Very much too the university owed to the fraternal devotion of Mrs. Stanford's brother, Mr. Charles G. Lathrop, who cared for with sympathetic hand the scanty receipts and scanty fragments of these harassed days. The warm sympathy of Thomas Welton Stanford came from across the seas. His gift of the Library Building came as a shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

At last, adjustment of one kind after another being made, there was a glimpse of daylight, when we were thrust without warning into still darker night.

The government suit for fifteen millions was brought for the purpose of tying up everything in the Stanford estate until the debts of the Central Pacific Railway were paid. It was not claimed that the university owed anything, or that the Stanford estate owed anything, or that the railway owed anything, on which payment was due, and as a matter of fact the Southern Pacific Company paid in full every dollar it owed to the government as soon as it became due, and with full interest. There was never any reason to suppose that it would not do so, and never any reason to suppose that it could not afford to pay this debt, for the power to control the line from Ogden to San Francisco, called the Central Pacific, was in itself an enormous asset, worth the value of this debt. Failure to pay this debt would have meant loss of control of the most valuable single factor in the great railroad system. The claim of the United States was secured by a second mortgage on the Central Pacific. It was supposed that it would be sold to satisfy the first mortgage, and that it would realize no more than this sum, leaving, as a railway manager cynically expressed it, nothing but "two streaks of rust and the right of way." The government proposed, by a sort of injunction, to hold up the Stanford property, which would then be seized, in case the Southern Pacific Railway system should at some future time be found in debt. There was no warrant in law or in good policy for this suit. One United States judge spoke of it as "the crime of the century." It is not easy to work out the motives,


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Rh political or personal or what not, which inspired it. Fortunately, just now it makes no difference.

The hardest feature of the matter lay in the attitude of those jointly interested in the ownership of the Southern Pacific System. These men declined to give any assistance in the struggle for justice and for the endowment of the university. All were financially concerned in the final outcome, but they left her to make the fight alone and at her own cost.

It should be said that none of the present owners or managers of the Southern Pacific were in any way concerned in this matter. It is also fair to say that this attitude was only the business man's point of view. It seemed impossible to save the estate and the university together. All receipts of the railroads (there were no profits) were needed to continue its operations, and the outlays of the university seemed to tho other owners of the railway system to involve a dangerous policy. On the other hand, to Mrs. Stanford the estate existed solely for the benefit of the university. To save the estate on these terms was to her like throwing over the passengers to lighten the ship. And as matters turned out, the university, the estate and the railway were all saved alike.

Perhaps we can get at the nature of this suit from a couple of letters written at the time. I find on our files a letter sent in November, 1894, to President Eliot of Harvard. In this letter I said:

I recognize of course that public sentiment can not be formed without a basis of knowledge. The peculiar conditions in which this university finds itself are not easily stated to the public. There are internal reasons why we can not well take the country into confidence. Some of these reasons are connected with the relations of the Stanford heirs. Others arise from our relations to our future partner, in whose power we are, until the government suit is disposed of, that is, until the settlement of the estate.

The grounds of the government suit, in brief, are these. The Central Pacific Railroad was regarded as an impossibility by most of the people of California. Its builders exhausted their funds and their credit and tried in vain to get help from every quarter, even after receiving large donations of land then worthless. The U. S. government came to their aid, whether wisely or not. . . . it does not matter at present. The road when finished bore a first mortgage, covering all that it is now worth. The government took a second mortgage upon it as security for the payment of the debt due for the bonds it had advanced in aid of the corporation. . ..

There is a law in California, by which the original stockholders in a corporation are personally liable for its debts, if suit be begun within three years after the organization of the corporation. This law was intended to check "wild-cat" speculations.

It is claimed that under this law the estates of Stanford and Huntington are still liable for the amount of the second mortgage, to come due in a few years. It is claimed that the three-years' limitation does not hold against the government. This question of liability had not been raised when the estates of the two remaining partners were distributed, and its enforcement would be possible as against the Stanford estate alone, as Mr. Huntington, being alive,


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can withdraw his interests to Mexico, should the suit against Mr. Stanford be successful. Meanwhile, by the way, the question is tested for him at the expense of the Stanford estate, the railroad interests of which are in his hands as president of the road. . ..

It is believed by all jurists whom we have consulted, that the government has no case. The limitation of three years being an integral part of the statute in question, must hold against the government as against others. Furthermore, the aid extended by the government was not a debt incurred in business of the corporation.

However this may be, the courts will decide justly. Our anxiety is that they may decide speedily.

As to the various criticisms which you mention, permit me a word. In all personal matters, Mr. Stanford was perfectly truthful and just. Except in matters pertaining to the division of the earnings and bonds of the Central Pacific and the fact that its affairs were not made public, I have never heard his railroad career seriously criticized. In California, he had a very wide following among the best men, men who liked and respected him, not on account of his wealth and railroad connections, but rather in spite of them. In all the railroad war through which this state is passing, no responsible person has uttered a slur against Mr. Stanford or against the university.

It is not true that Mr. Stanford pretended to give the university a dollar more than he gave. He gave the three farms, formerly valued at $5,000,000, in these times worth much less; all the movable stock upon them, about $1,000,000 more; the university buildings costing $1,250,000; and by will $2,500,000 in cash. It was agreed by Mr. and Mrs. Stanford that each should be the residuary legatee of the other, and that whichever should survive should devote the rest of his or her life and estate to the university. The Stanford estate is therefore the university's endowment. Not in law but in fact the estate is the university. It was Mr. Stanford's feeling, and I was fully aware of it, that should his wife survive him, she should be free to endow the university and to control it as he had done. No one has ever struggled more loyally to do so than Mrs. Stanford. Since her husband died we have not received a dollar of his money, but the university has gone on without check or hindrance, though at times she has been forced to give up luxuries and to limit her expenses in every conceivable way. As a matter of fact, she has each year given me a personal bond for all she thinks that she can raise from the farms and from her own small personal property. Her devotion to the work is absolute and she is giving her life to it. When she loses, she will die.

The lands are unsalable only because the deed of gift prohibits their sale. In Mr. Stanford's lifetime they were conducted as parks. When they came into our hands, their products fell short by $10,000 to $20,000 per month of meeting the pay-rolls. This year under Mrs. Stanford's direction, they have yielded upwards of $150,000 above expenses. The sale of colts is a source of revenue now that the reputation of the Palo Alto stud is made.

No cash has ever been set aside in advance, for very simple reasons. I could not ask for it. Mr. Stanford was not expecting sudden death, financial panics, nor an attack from the government. He paid in cash all salaries and all bills, placed no limits on me, and on his sudden death left no debts against the university. There are now no debts left against his estate, which is appraised at $17,000,000, except the government claim which acts as an injunction tying everything up. It is not true that Mr. Stanford tried to "rear a personal monument by a good use of ill-gotten money." No one ever gave money in a more generous spirit, and there have not been many great givers who placed so


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few restrictions on their gifts. Personal vanity does not give without restrictions in its own interest. He claimed that no man in California was the poorer for his wealth, which was true. It never occurred to him that it was "ill-gotten" or needed any apology.

I know better than any one else, except his wife, can, how genuine Mr. Stanford's interest was. He treated me, and through me, the university, with perfect truthfulness and justice. For my part and that of the faculty, we have tried to make the fund in our possession, count every dollar for a dollar to the best advancement of higher education.

As to the public at large, in time they will judge us by our fruits, if we are allowed to live to bear fruitage.

To a loyal friend of Governor Stanford, Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, I wrote this on June 20, 1894:

You will pardon me for writing to you to express my very great pleasure and that of Mrs. Stanford in the stand you have taken in defence of Senator Stanford's memory and in the effort you have made toward the protection of the university from the evil effects of prolonged litigation in which its endowment would be at stake.

You who knew Senator Stanford well know that the recent attack of Mr. Geary on his motives was without foundation in fact. The feeling of revenge at any real or supposed slight on the part of the legislature in connection with the State University, had nothing to do with his actions. He was not a man to cherish that kind of feelings. The sole basis that accusation had was this: Mr. Stanford acted for a few days as a member of the State Board of Regents. He was very much surprised to find that this board ignored the recommendations of the president of the university, and in general were disposed to treat the university chairs as personal "spoils." This led Mr. Stanford to doubt whether, if he should endow a university for California, it would be wise to place it in the hands of a political board of regents. These conditions in the State Board have now changed for the better. Mr. Stanford always spoke most kindly of the State University. He frequently consulted with its professors and it was a great pleasure for him to know that the new institution has in every way helped the old one. The friendly rivalry has been most salutary to both. Instead of 450 college students in one school as in 1890, there are now 1,700 students in the two, besides the professional classes.

As a matter of fact, Mr. and Mrs. Stanford founded the university with the sole purpose of putting their fortune to the best use of their country. I know Mr. Stanford's motives in this regard as well as one man can know the motives of another, and I know that no feeling of revenge and no selfish feeling entered into these motives.

The university has now safely passed every other serious difficulty. Mrs. Stanford has no other purpose in life than that of carrying out every detail of her husband's purposes. Her devotion has shown itself in maintaining the work of the university unimpaired during this period of hard times, while the estates are in probate, and therefore not available for university purposes.

It would, I believe, be a great national calamity if this great fund were lost to higher education. It would be almost as great a calamity if it were exposed to the delay and loss of prolonged litigation.

I assure you that the great majority of the self-respecting people of California are very grateful to you for what you have done towards the protection of the university endowment.


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166 The story of the passing of the great suit is known to all the old students of the university.

It was brought to trial in San Francisco in the United States District Court, and the university side of the question had the strong support of the great jurist, John Garber.

The decision of Judge Boss was against the claim of the government. It was appealed and came before Judges Morrow, Gilbert and Hawley, who again found no merit in the government contention. It was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, and here our case seemed hopeless. The Supreme Court moves slowly, and our lifeblood was ebbing fast. It takes money to run a university, and our money was almost gone. To delay the matter was to destroy us, and no one but ourselves had any interest in pushing along the decision. Finally Mrs. Stanford went to Washington to appeal to President Cleveland. She told him our story, and beseeched him to use his influence for a speedy settlement. Once for all, let us know the future and we will stand by it. At last, President Cleveland saw his duty, and through his influence the Stanford case was placed on the calendar of the United States Supreme Court for speedy trial. Joseph Choate, whose name every Stanford man should hold in grateful memory, supplemented the work of John Garber. The case came to trial, and by a unanimous decision, the work of Justice Harlan, Stanford University was again free!

The boys celebrated the victory as Stanford boys can. The United States Post office on the campus, a wooden shack now removed, was painted cardinal red, to its great improvement in appearance, and once for all and forever the future of the university was assured. This was the end of the dark days, but not of the days that were difficult. There were still eight millions of dollars to be paid. There was still the uncertainty as to whether Mrs. Stanford could survive to pay it, and the estate must come into her hands before she could give it to the university. She made many attempts to facilitate this transfer. At one time, we have the pathetic figure of the good woman going to the Queen's Jubilee in London, with all her own possessions, half a million of dollars worth of jewels, in a suit case carried in her hand. She hoped to sell these to advantage, when all the world was gathered in London. But the market was not good, and three fourths of them she brought back to California again.

And this seems the appropriate place for the story of the jewel fund. It is told in an address made at the foundation of the Library Building, and again and finally in a resolution of the Board of Trustees. On May 15, 1905, 1 said:

There was once a man—a real man, vigorous, wealthy and powerful. He loved his wife greatly, for she, wise, loyal, devoted, was worthy of such love. And because among all the crystals in all the world the diamond is the hardest


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and sparkles the brightest, and because the ruby is most charming, and the emerald gentlest—the man bought gifts of these all for his wife.

As the years passed a great sorrow came to them; their only child died in the glory of his youth. In their loneliness there came to these two the longing to help other children, to use their wealth and power to aid the youth of future generations to better and stronger life. They lived in California and they loved California; and because California loved them, as she loves all her children, this man said, "The children of California shall be my children." To make this true in very fact he built for them a beautiful "Castle in Spain," with cloisters and towers, and "red tiled roofs against the azure sky"—for "skies are bluest in the heart of Spain." This castle, the Castle of Hope, which they called the university, they dedicated to all who might enter its gates, and it became to them the fulfilment of the dream of years—a dream of love and hope, of faith in God and good will toward men.

In the course of time the man died. The power he bore vanished; his wealth passed to other hands; the work he had begun seemed likely to fail. But the woman rose from her second great sorrow and set herself bravely to the task of completing the work as her husband had planned it. "The children of California shall be my children"—that thought once spoken could never be unsaid. The doors of the castle once opened could never be closed. To those who helped her in these days she said: "We may lose the farms, the railways, the bonds, but still the jewels remain. The university can be kept alive by these till the skies clear and the money which was destined for the future shall come into the future's hands. The university shall be kept open. When there is no other way, there are still the jewels." Because there always remained this last resource, the woman never knew defeat. No one can who strives for no selfish end. "God's errands never fail," and her errand was one of good will and mercy. And when the days were darkest, the time came when it seemed the jewels must be sold. Across the sea to the great city this sorrowful, heroic woman journeyed alone with the bag of jewels in her hand that she might sell them to the money changers that flocked to the Queen's Jubilee. Sad, pathetic mission, fruitless, in the end, but full of all promise for the future of the university, founded in faith and hope and love—the trinity, St. Paul says, of things that abide. But the jewels were not sold, save only a few of them, and these served a useful purpose in beginning anew the work of building the university. Better times came. The money of the estate, freed from litigation, became available for its destined use. The jewels found their way back to California to be held in reserve against another time of need. A noble church was erected—one of the noblest in the land, a fitting part of the beautiful dream castle, the university. It needed to make it perfect the warmth of ornamentation, the glory of the old masters, who wrought "when art was still religion." To this end the jewels were dedicated. It was an appropriate use, but the need again passed. Other resources were found to adorn the church—to fill its windows with beautiful pictures, to spread upon its walls exquisite mosaics like those of St. Mark, rivaling even the precious stones of Venice. In the course of time the woman died also. She had the satisfaction of seeing the buildings of the university completed, the cherished plans of her husband, to which she had devoted anxious years, fully carried out. Death came to her in a foreign land, but in a message written before her departure to be read at the laying of the corner-stone of the great library, she made known


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the final destiny of the jewels. She directed that they should be sold and their value made a permanent endowment of the library of the university.

And so the jewels have at least come to be the enduring possession of all the university—of all who may tread these fields or enter these corridors. In the memory of the earlier students they stand for the Quadrangle, whose doors they kept open, and for the adornment of the church, which shall be to all generations of students a source of joy and rest, a refining and uplifting influence. To the students who are to come in future days the message of the jewels will be read in the books they study within these walls and the waves of their influence spreading out shall touch the uttermost parts of the earth.

They say there is a language of precious stones, but I know that they speak in diverse tongues. Some diamonds tell strange tales, but not these diamonds. In the language of the jewels of Stanford may be read the lessons of faith, of hope and good will. They tell how Stanford was founded in love of the things that abide.

It was resolved by the Board of Trustees on May 29, 1908, as follows:

it was a cherished plan of Mrs. Jane L. Stanford that all jewels left by her should be sold after her death, and that the proceeds (estimated by her at more than five hundred thousand dollars) should be invested as a permanent fund, of which the income should be used exclusively for the purchase of books for the Library of the Leland Stanford Junior University; and

the pressing financial needs of the university compelled her temporarily to forego said plan, and to sell many of said jewels in her lifetime in order to raise money to maintain the university; and

by communication delivered to this board at its meeting, held February 22, 1905, Mrs. Stanford declared:

"In view of the facts and of my interest in the future development of the University Library, I now request the trustees to establish and maintain a library fund, and upon the sale of said jewels, after my departure from this life, I desire that the proceeds therefrom be paid into such fund and be preserved intact, and invested in bonds or real estate as a part of the capital of the endowment, and that the income therefrom be used exclusively for the purchase of books and other publications. I desire that the fund be known and designated as the "Jewel Fund." I have created and selected a Library Committee of the Board of Trustees, under supervision of which all such purchases should be made."

Now, in order to carry out said plan of Mrs. Stanford and to establish and maintain an adequate library fund, and to perform the promise made by this board to her, it is

Resolved, that a fund of five hundred thousand dollars, to be known and designated as the "Jewel Fund" is hereby created and established, which fund shall be preserved intact, and shall be separately invested and kept invested in bonds or real estate by the Board of Trustees, and the income of said fund shall be used exclusively in the purchase of books and other publications for the Library of the Leland Stanford Junior University, under the supervision and direction of the Library Committee of this Board of Trustees.

It was in these dark days that I was asked by President Cleveland through Mr. Charles S. Hamlin, to go to Bering Sea to help settle the fur seal disputes.

Before I started, in 1896, Mrs. Stanford said: Now that our


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Rh are looking so much better, do you not think that I might afford to bring back my housekeeper?" Her servants then were her secretary, her Chinese cook, and an old man, a servant of other days, who served as butler, without salary.

It was in these days, too, that Mrs. Stanford, going to Washington to settle up the household affairs of the mansion occupied while Mr. Stanford was senator, took four hundred dollars with her, lived in the private car owned by the Governor, attended to the packing of her goods, and the rental of her house to a senator from New York, and brought back $340 of the amount, which she turned over to me, to be used for the university. I have given this and other details private and personal, but full of meaning as showing her devotion to the university, and her utter unselfishness in carrying out the plans made by herself and her husband for the welfare of the men and women of the coming generations of California and of the world. While matters inside the faculty and the details of instruction were left to those supposed to be experts in these lines, for this was her husband's wish, she had always before her his purposes. "What would Mr. Stanford do under these conditions?" was always her first question; and in almost every instance this question led to a wise decision.

To outside suggestions as to this or that, she used to reply: "I will never concern myself with the religion, the politics or the love affairs of any professor in Stanford University." And this resolution she religiously kept.

With the passing of the government suit, conditions looked brighter. The payment of the eight millions went on very slowly, because the railway holdings could not be broken and must be sold as a whole if at all. The taxes on properties yielding no income became an intolerable burden. Besides, it was apparent that the original enabling act under which the Board of Trustees was organized contained grave defects, which might invalidate the actions of this Board. For this reason, mainly, the Board of Trustees existed in name only, Mrs. Stanford being in fact the sole trustee.

In 1899 the railroad holdings were sold, to good advantage, thanks to the good offices of a well-known German banker whose name I am glad to speak, James Speyer, and the estate at once passed out of debt. Finally, piece by piece, it passed into Mrs. Stanford's hands, and each piece was at once deeded to the Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees was legalized by a change in the State Constitution. The university was by the same means relieved of part of the burden of its taxes. At the earliest possible moment, Mrs. Stanford again and in full transferred the whole estate to the board, reserving for herself a relatively small sum "to play with" as she said, but in fact to give her occupation and means to carry out in her own way other plans of strengthening the university and of helping mankind. The Board of


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170 Trustees was then organized as a working body. Mrs. Stanford became its president, and this history passes over into the bright days of the dawn of the twentieth century.

Mrs. Stanford then left the university for a trip around the world by way of Australia and Ceylon. This was not that she wanted to see the world, or to be absent from her beloved Palo Alto, but that she wished to give to the Board of Trustees absolute freedom in taking up their great responsibilities. She wished them to handle the accumulated funds on their own initiative, without suggestion from herself.

The rest of the story can be told by others, for it is an open record. The whole may be summed up in these words of Mrs. Stanford in a letter written to me September 3, 1898:

That all this may seem more real, I venture to quote a few paragraphs from personal letters of Mrs. Stanford written in the dark days from 1893 to 1899.

On November 24, 1895, Mrs. Stanford wrote from the university: It has been my policy to say as little about my financial affairs to the outside world as possible, but I feel sure that I am doing myself and our blessed work injustice by allowing the impression among all classes to feel certain there is plenty of money, at my command, the future is assured, the battle fought and won. . . . I only ask righteous justice. I ask not for myself, but that I may be able to discharge my duty and loyalty to the one who trusted me, and loved me, and loves me still. I am so poor myself that I can not this year give to any charity; not even do 1 give this festive season to any of my family. I do not tell you this, kind friend, in a complaining way, for when one has pleasant surroundings, all we waift to eat and wear, added to this have those in their lives we can count on as friends, it would be sinful to complain. I repeat it only that you my friend may know, I ask only justice, to the dear ones gone from earth life and the living one left. I am willing you should speak plainly to any one who may question as to the university or myself. I have many devoted and true loyal friends in Washington, and I am sure did they know I was kept from my rights, they would speak their sentiments openly, and when it was known a public sentiment was in my favor and against their unfairness, it would cause a different course to be pursued toward me. 1 shall henceforth speak plainly, and I desire you to do so. You will meet our good President, Mr. Cleveland, my good and true friend Secretary Carlisle, Mr. John Foster and many others, and you. . . can do our blessed work good and God will bless, the act, and bring fruit to bear from the seeds sown. I have kept myself and my affairs in the background. It has been an inspiration from the source from which all good comes, from my Father God—I trust Him to lead me all along the rest of the journey of life. He has led me thus far through the deep waters, and joy will come, for He never deserts the widow, the childless, the orphan. I have His promise "blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."

On the same day she said:

Everything is going on smoothly as far as I know at the university. The


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boys are wild over the game to be played. I hope they will win because my boys will be happy if they win.

On July 20, 1896, she wrote to a candidate for a professorship:

On December 28, 1895, she said:

On July 29, 1895, she wrote:

Soon after, she wrote:

After the decision of Judge Ross (July 6, 1895), she wrote:

From Paris, August 30, 1897, she wrote:

Again, in 1897, she writes to her trusted solicitor, Russell Wilson:

I stand almost alone in this blessed work left to my care, and I want and


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need the president's support and his helpfulness in this work as far as he can support me. There are plenty who are interested in the affairs of the estate with me, but few in the university.

In July, 1898, she said:

On December 14, 1900, she repeats:

These extracts, largely from business letters, will show better than any words of mine her spirit and her faith. These must justify and make live the words I used on February 28, 1905, the date of Mrs. Stanford's sudden death in Honolulu.

The sudden death of Mrs. Stanford has come as a great shock to all of us. She has been so brave and strong that we hoped for her return well rested, and that her last look on earth might be on her beloved Palo Alto. But it was a joy to her to have been spared so long; to have lived to see the work of her husband's life and hers firmly and fully established.

Hers has been a life of the most perfect devotion both to her own and her husband' 8 ideals. If in the years we knew her she ever had a selfish feeling, no one ever detected it. All her thoughts were of the university and of the way to make it effective for wisdom and righteousness.

No one outside of the university can understand the difficulties in her way in the final establishment of the university, and her patient deeds of selfsacrifice can be known only to those who saw them from day to day. Some day the world may understand a part of this. It will then know her for the wisest, as well as the most generous, friend of learning in our time. It will know her as the most loyal and most devoted of wives. What she did was always the "best she could do. Wise, devoted, steadfast, prudent, patient and just—every good word we can use was hers by right. The men and women of the university feel the loss not alone of the most generous of helpers, but of the nearest of friends.

To these words spoken when the shock of the death of the mother of the university first came to her children, I added later a single thought as to Mrs. Stanford's conception of the future development of the university.

It should be above all other things, sound and good, using its forces not for mental development alone, but for physical, moral and spiritual growth and strength. It should make not only scholars, but men and women, alert, fearless, wise. God-fearing, skilled in "team work" and eager to "get into the game," whatever the struggle into which they may be thrown. To this end she would


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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.