Famous Givers and Their Gifts

by Sarah Knowles Bolton

Foreseeing the great future of California, he purchased very large tracts of land, including Vina with nearly 60,000 acres, the Gridley Ranch with 22,000 acres, and his summer home, Palo Alto, thirty miles from San Francisco, with 8,400 acres. He built a stately home in San Francisco costing over $1,000,000, and in his journeys abroad collected for it costly paintings and other works of art.

But his chief delight was in his Palo Alto estate. Here he sought to plant every variety of tree, from the world over, that would grow in California. Many thousands were set out each year. He was a great lover of trees, and could tell the various kinds from the bark or leaf.

He loved animals, especially the horse, and had the largest horse farm for raising horses in the world. Some of his remarkable thoroughbreds and trotters were Electioneer, Arion, Palo Alto, Sunol, "the flying filly," Racine, Piedmont that cost $30,000, and many others. He spent $40,000, it is said, in experiments in instantaneous photography of the horse; and a book resulted, "The Horse in Motion," which showed that the ideas of painters about a horse at high speed were usually wrong. No one was ever allowed to kick or whip a horse or destroy a bird on the estate. Mr. George T. Angell of Boston tells of the remark made to General Francis A. Walker by Mr. Stanford. The horses of the latter were so gentle that they would put their noses on his shoulder, or come up to visitors to be petted. "How do you contrive to have your horses so gentle?" asked General Walker. "I never allow a man to speak unkindly to one of my horses; and if a man swears at one of them, I discharge him," was the reply. There were large greenhouses and vegetable gardens at Palo Alto, and acres of wheat, rye, oats, and barley. But the most interesting and beautiful and highly prized of all the charms at Palo Alto was an only child, a lad named Leland Stanford, Jr. He was never a rugged boy; but his sunny, generous nature and intellectual qualities gave great promise of future usefulness. Mrs. Sallie Joy White, in the January, 1892, Wide Awake, tells some interesting things about him. She says, "His chosen playmate was a little lame boy, the son of people in moderate circumstances, who lived near the Stanfords in San Francisco. The two were together almost constantly, and each was at home in the other's house. He was very considerate of his little playfellow, and constituted himself his protector."

When Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper was making efforts to raise money for the free kindergarten work in San Francisco suggested by Felix Adler in 1878, she called on Mrs. Stanford, and the boy Leland heard the story of the needs of poor children. Putting his hand in his mother's, he said, "Mamma, we must help those children."

"Well, Leland," said his mother, "what do you wish me to do?"

"Give Mrs. Cooper $500 now, and let her start a school, then come to us for more." And Leland's wish was gratified.

"Between this time, 1879, and 1892," says Miss M. V. Lewis in the Home Maker for January, 1892, "Mrs. Leland Stanford has given $160,000, including a permanent endowment fund of $100,000 for the San Francisco kindergartens." She supports seven or more, five in San Francisco, and two at Palo Alto.

A writer in the press says, "Her name is down for $8,000 a year for these schools, and I am told she spends much more. I attended a reception given her by the eight schools under her patronage; and it was a very affecting sight to watch these four hundred children, all under four years of age, marching into the hall and up to their benefactor, each tiny hand grasping a fragrant rose which was deposited in Mrs. Stanford's lap. These children are gathered from the slums of the city. It is far wiser to establish schools for the training of such as these, than to wait until sin and crime have done their work, and then make a great show of trying to reclaim them through reformatory institutions."

Leland, Jr., was very fond of animals. Mrs. White tells this story: "One day, when he was about ten years of age, he was standing looking out of the window, and his mother heard a tumult outside, and saw Leland suddenly dash out of the house, down the steps, into a crowd of boys in front of the house. Presently he reappeared covered with dust, holding a homely yellow dog in his arms. Quick as a flash he was up the steps and into the house with the door shut behind him, while a perfect howl of rage went up from the boys outside.