with great sabre gashes down their sides, they give one the impression of a tremendous force which menaces man and makes all his work seem pany and contemptible. The world has no scenery like that which meets the traveler on the way to the Klondike. Then, too, the coloring of the mountains, the effects of the midnight sun on fields of ice and snow, the long arctic night- these are things which would make the greatest artist in words realize how poor, is his skill." Joaquin puts his impressions of the Yukon country and his experiences as a prospector on the Klondike into a lecture, which he has delivered thruout the East.

After this talk we went out and strolled up the hill to look over the poet's possessions. In the nearest cottage was his favorite daughter, Miss Maud Miller. Farther up the hill, in the best sheltered spot, is the prettiest cottage the home of the poet's mother. He calls her "My Queen," and for her everyone else must give way. This love and reverence for his mother reveals Miller's best traits - the tenderness of his nature and the kindness which has survived many harsh experiences. Tho over eighty, the old lady is still bright in mind and active in body. She takes a keen interest in current affairs, and talks well. In her pleasant reception-room is the art treasure of the Heights a superb portrait of John C. Frémont, painted by Jewett in 1852. It shows the fine eyes of the Pathfinder, with the curve of the eyebrow that betokens courage and will, and it seems to me to reveal more of the real character of the man than any other picture. It was painted on a tablecloth of one of the Panama steamers, and its genuineness is fully attested.

Everyone on the Heights has a separate dwelling-place where privacy may be enjoyed. Joaquin believes in personal seclusion. He thinks that the world loses much from its tendency to gregariousness. He believes that a man should not be too familiar even with the members of his own family, and that there are times when solitude is a necessity. His system may seem odd, but it has much to recommend it.

Over beyond Miller's cottage is a trout-pond filled with pretty fish, and farther up the hill a Doric gateway which leads to the higher paths. Joaquin has demonstrated on this steep hillside how many beautiful walks one may make by planting a few trees. The lower sides of the paths are walled up with stone, and are thus protected from washing by heavy rains. Far up on the summit of the hill is a solid stone mausoleum or funeral pyre, eight feet high, ten feet long, and ten feet broad. It is made of black flint rock, and will endure for ages. The poet has left instructions that his body shall be cremated upon it, and the ashes flung to the four winds of heaven. Near at hand is a huge bowlder on which is graven, "To the Unknown." Upon the summit of another hill is a pyramidal pile of rocks dedicated to Browning, while not far away the poet hopes to erect a monument to Frémont, by the side of a huge bowlder which marks the site of the Pathfinder's camp when he passed over these hills in 1843.

Returning from the summit, one is impressed more strongly than before

with Miller's success in transforming this stony, barren hillside into a garden of roses and pleasant, shaded paths. Under his own vines and olives I took leave of the Poet of the Sierras, who has been able to put his yearning for beauty into practical form and to make an ideal home on the Western shore, where

---

"The bland

Still air is fresh with touch of wood and tide."

The Tenth

Anniversary of Stanford University

BY PRESIDENT DAVID STARR JORDAN.

Ten years ago today the students and faculty of Leland Stanford Jr. University met to inaugurate a new center of higher education in California. There was money and bope, flowers and sunshine, the glories of nature and the glories of architecture. The one question was, Shall we have students? The population of the coast was scanty, less all told than that of the city of Chicago. It had already an honored university and no visible place for more.

The New York "Mail and Express" notified us that there was as much room for a new university in California as for an asylum for brokendown sea captains in Switzerland, and the professors were told that for years they must "lecture in marble halls to empty benches,” if indeed there should be any need of benches in these balls, in which they would serve only to disfigure the architecture. The first entrance examination offered little more encouragement. It was held on the porch of Escondite cottage. Three candidates were present, two men who failed, and one woman, Miss Longley of Mountain View, who passed the first student admitted to Stanford.

Lest we should provide a feast for those who would not come it was agreed to limit the faculty at the beginning to fifteen besides the president, the registrar, who also taught economics, the librarian, Professor Woodruff, who could also teach law, and Bert Fesler, who taught the higher law in Encina Hall. After these there was a waiting list of assistants who could come if wanted, besides two heads of departments. Professor Stillman and Professor Warner, who were to arrive at Christmas. Then President White of Cornell, in more ways than one the good friend, the good angel of the institution, one who has never lost faith in its present or its future, for he saw in its growth his own best educational ideas made actual - President White agreed to come as lecturer on the French Revolution.

Four hundred and sixty-five students were in attendance on this first day of October, 1891. They came from almost every state in the Union, from Europe, China and Japan. About a hundred received advanced standing. The rest formed the famous pioneer class, the class of 1895, the class which already reminds us that there were giants in those days when the world and the university were young. And with the presence of the students we found our just reason for being. The work began in serious, hopeful earnestness. It is going on today, and it will go on, we believe, so long as civilization shall endure. Oxford, founded by Alfred the Great, has a thousand years the start, but this does not discourage us, for we have kept up with it. The new university rides on the shoulders of the old and the lessons of the thousand years belong to us just as much as to old Oxford.

One lesson of these ten years is ours and ours alone. It is the lesson of faith and fidelity: faith in the future under God's help, and fidelity to a trust under the most discouraging conditions.

There is not one of us who realizes the tremendous nature of the obstacles encountered by the university in the years from 1893 to 1896. and the years of financial panic, of wanton litigation, the times of depression and distress, which descended like a prison gate on an institution prepared only for hope and progress. There was but one thing which could save the institution, the unswerving devotion of the surviving founder. To doubt or falter was to perish, and in the most trying times no such words were found in her vocabulary. To her there must always be a way. The good Lord would provide it. And always the way was found and the university dedicated to her beloved son has never closed its doors once opened. By the noble generosity of the founders and the help of him who doeth all things well, these doors shall never be closed so long as one stone shall remain upon another.

Mothers' Club Department.

CONDUCTED BY JENNIE L HAVICE.

"Teach your children to rely in life on the pleasures of the soul, or as Goethe puts it, the pleasures of personality. "

The Mothers' Club of Laguna Honda School held an interesting meeting the first Thursday of last month. Mrs. M. L. O'Neal read a paper written by Mrs. Frederic Burk on "The Promotion of Pupils." Miss Jean Parker will speak at the next meeting.

The Golden Gate Mothers' Club met Wednesday, September 18th. Mrs. J. L. Havice led the discussion and read a paper on "How to Punish." The discussion that followed was instructive, amusing and interesting.

Miss Fairchild, who is president, keeps up a remarkable degree of interest in this club. A page from Mrs C. R. Pechin's paper will serve to show the high estimation in which it is held:

"A long acquaintance with your president has made me so appreciative of her sterling qualities that to be associated with her even in the slightest degree is an honor I appreciate very fully. Secondly, I come both as a teacher and a mother and am therefore peculiarly interested in matters affecting both spheres of life. Thirdly, this Mothers' Club has gained such a reputation among our school people that I consider it a special honor to be invited to come here and meet its members to whom we teachers owe so much.

"Above every other advantage derived from your earnest efforts in our behalf is the inestimable advantage resulting from your presence among us and the moral support we have gained in this community from the fact that teachers and parents were working together for a common cause, and were banded together by a common interest. It is certainly a novel aspect in San Francisco, this of mothers and teachers joining hands to perform the most difficult and sacred duty devolving upon mankind, that of properly educating and elevating, as the French call it, the little children that have been entrusted to our care. That the teachers' interest has become the mothers' and the mothers' the teachers' is a matter of congratulation on both sides, for the school is meant to supplement the home and the two must go hand in hand, if the greatest good of the little child, their common care, is to be obtained. The new education, if it means anything at all, means just the natural discipine of the child, the reasonable natural dealing with the child that devoted parents entrust to us for so many hours each day. This new method is exemplified in the beautiful union of mother and teacher existing right here in your midst, and to me it is an admirable thing that together you have worked so well, and that together you have accomplished so much, I venture to say that the painful school yard scenes reported in some of the daily papers (whose influence for ill among our growing youth cannot possibly be estimated) would never have occurred had the teachers in those schools had the sympathetic acquaintance with the boys' parents that exists in this little school. This Mothers' Club stands today a beacon light in the darkness surrounding us, point, ing the way for others to follow. To the mothers we must ever turn for sympathy and guidance, and let me add, for reform. With the wider advantages that

women now enjoy, and with her higher education, come new duties which women cannot shirk, for they are indirectly in her province the province of home; and whatever concerns the home must be inevitably met by woman, and by the mother especially."

The balance of Mrs. Pechin's paper was devoted to the manner of spending the annual six weeks' vacation, and will, we hope, be published at some future time.

The Relation of the Parent to the Public School from a Mother's

Standpoint.

Read at Golden Gate Mothers' Meeting

By ANNIE LITTLE BARRY.

Education in the true sense of the word is formation of character, "Character is power." How may our children best receive this education? Shall we leave the work to be done by the teacher, or shall our children's education be a part of our life work?

First, let us begin with ourselves. The average mother is a busy mother, and has little time for self-improvement, but we should so divide and arrange our time that we can progress, be it ever so little. Social duties, wifely duties, the claim of motherhood should not so monopolize our time that we do not read the daily papers and at least one good book a month, striving as we journey along thru life to learn a little every day A mother may selfishly give all her time and thought to making Mary's dresses that Mary may look well, she may fill Johnnie's stomach with goodies he were better off without, and still not do her duty to her children.

When we stop and think how much more of our children's time is spent in the school room than with the mother, we well have cause to be anxious. There is much, very much to be desired in the Public Schools. Many of us can never feel that it is right to give one teacher forty or fifty restless little beings to control and interest. We believe it is a hardship for the teacher, and an injustice to the children. We should never lose an opportunity to express ourselves everywhere and to everybody except to our children. A parent should never criticise in the presence of the child anything pertaining to the child's school life. Let us remember that back of all principals and teachers is a school board, and that every school board is governed by very necessity and to a degree by school boards of other states. If some of us feel there is a tendency toward fads and cramming, let us be patient and hope that these errors will in time be corrected. We are very much inclined to forget conditions as they were when we were children. None of us would like to relegate our children to school methods in vogue when we were young. The world is marching on. We and our children are part of the procession. Let us keep step to the march of progress, trusting that the way may lead us to more practical, more thoro education each day.

It is the business, the privilege, the duty and the right of every parent to visit the public schools and visit them often. We should know the sanitary conditions of our school houses, should become acquainted with the principals and teachers of our children. Not every teacher in San Francisco has ability any more than every carpenter, every doctor, or every mother. One child may do good work with a teacher, another child in the same family may fail with this teacher. It is not always justice to blame the teacher, but when a mother becomes convinced that a child cannot get on with his teacher the best plan is to ask to have him changed to another class; but first be very sure.

We cannot all expect every one of our children to stand at the very head of the class. It is not a sign of dullness of intellect if they do not, neither is it a sign of failure on the part of the teacher to do her duty. Few of the great men and women of the world distinguished themselves at school. Some children have talent in one direction, some in another. Good conscientious work is all we have a right to expect. Let us be reasonable.

Many of us chaff greatly under the rules of school, especially if we have managed our children without laying down many rules. Let us remember the diversity of temperament, the different home environment of the pupils, and urge our children to conform with school rules to the letter of the law. Remember none of us are infallible and perhaps there are a lack of rules at home. To teach our children to do right for right's sake, rather than for fear of punishment, and a consideration for others, would help the public school teachers not a little.

No class of the world's toilers have such a demand on their nerve force as teachers. Think,

mothers, what a demand two or three children make on your patience; what would it be if you had forty restless little beings to contend with, to keep employed, and under restraint for five hours each day? It is the duty of every parent to speak kind words to her children's teacher, "Kind words are the music of the world." There never lived a teacher who was not deserving of some kind word. Teachers would fail less often in their duty were parents more generous with kind words.

The mother-school is after all the most important; there are lessons no one may teach our children but ourselves. The problem of childhood is the greatest problem of today. The responsibility of parents, how great. The relation of the parent to the public school should be one of helpfulness, of co operation, never fault-finding and grumbling. The more interest we parents take in public schools, the better will we be able to regulate some of the things we do not now like. Remembering interest is not interference.

And thank our wise Creator for the public school system of the United States, which helps develop character and make a great and powerful nation.

PRESIDENT WILLIAM MCKINLEY

To the Young People of Oakland, California:

"There is nothing better for the United States than EDUCATED CITIZENSHIP; and, my young friends, there never was a time in all our history when knowledge was so essential to success as now. Everything requires knowledge. What we want of the young people now is exact knowledge. You want to know whatever you undertake to do a little better than any. body else. And if you will do that, then there is nothing that is not within your reach, I don't care what it is.

And what you want besides education is CHARACTER - CHARACTER! There is nothing that will serve a young man or an old man so well as good character. And did you ever think that it is just as easy to form a good habit as it is to form a bad one? and it is just as hard to break a good habit as it is to break a bad one? So get the good ones and keep them. With EDUCATION and CHARACTER you will not only achieve individual success, but will contribute largely to the progress of your country."

A card containing the above was sent to all the schools in Oakland, Alameda County, by the County Board of Education.

MISS ELIZABETH HUGHES OF ENGLAND ON CO-EDUCATION IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS.

"Let me suggest a principle which could be used to decide upon what should go into a curriculum. The end of education is preparation for life, and all of life is not to be taken up by the earning of a livelihood. We are not to be prepared to be only makers of wealth. There are two ways of preparation - the direct and indirect. It pays us in the end to make our children intelligent human beings first and then prepare them for special work. The real function of the school teacher is to give indirect preparation for life-to teach how to spend well as to acquire wealth. Viewed in this light co-education from the curriculum side presents no diffi culty because the indirect preparation can be given boys and girls together.

"Now, regarding the companionship of young people under the co-education plan. Many young people waste time in a foolish sort of social life while they are studying. They engage in flirtations, and it must be admitted that co education is more or less of a failure in America because of the foolish social existence of the young people at school or at college. In my opin ion the young people could be so divided into classes that those who are strong enough to stand alone could still proceed under the co-educational plan. There is a very large class of students who in the right atmosphere could not lose anything by co-education. In England the teachers see to it that the human environment is helping and not hindering the students. During the dangerous age of adolescence it is surely the duty of the teacher to see that the boys and girls help and do not hurt one another. I do not think many American students are worn out by hard work. The kind of society you have in the American colleges is not the kind I would ex pect to find here. The social life of college men and women ought to be better than that of

other people.

"Another objection raised to co-education is that it destroys the bloom of womanliness. In my opinion the bloom of womanliness is more likely to be rubbed off if you plunge the graduate of a girl's school or of a girl's college right out into the society of boys and men with whom they have not been brought up."