Herbert Hoover: The Man and His Work. Vernon L. Kellogg
In other words, Herbert had made up his mind that he wanted to study science, and for that purpose wanted to fit himself for and go to a modern scientific university. Also, he wanted to be, just as soon as he possibly could, on an independent financial footing. He probably did not express these wishes, in his boy's vocabulary, by any such large mouthful of phrases; he probably said to himself, "I want to earn my own living, and go to a university where I can learn science."
Just what led him to the decision about the modern university and science is not easy for the grown-up Herbert Hoover of today to tell. But he is pretty sure that a large part of this determination came from the casual visit of a man whom he had never seen before and has never seen or heard of since, but who was an old friend of his father.
This man, on his way through the town to look at a mine he owned somewhere in eastern Oregon, dropped off at Newberg so that he might see the little son of his Iowa friend. He was a "mining man," and, from the impression that Mr. Hoover still has of him, probably a mining engineer. He stayed at the local hotel for two or three days, and saw what he could of young Herbert between school-hours and chore-times. His conversation was apparently mostly about the difference in the work and achievements in the world of the man who had a profession and the one who had not. It was illustrated, because the speaker was a miner, by examples in the field of mining. The talk also was much about engineering in general and about just what training it was necessary for a boy to have in order to become a good engineer, with much emphasis put on the part in this training which was to be got from a university. He also explained the difference between a university and a small academy-college.
And then the man went on to his mine. He invited the fascinated boy to go with him for a little visit, but permission for this was not obtained. The trails of this man and Herbert Hoover have never touched again, and yet this stray mining engineer, whose name, even, we do not know, almost certainly was more responsible than any other external influence in determining Hoover's later education and adopted profession.
In Portland Herbert got a job in a real estate office as useful boy-of-all-work, including particularly the driving of prospective purchasers about to see various alluring corner lots in town and inviting farmsteads in the surrounding country. For his work he received sufficient wages to pay for all of his very modest living. He had hoped to go to the high school to prepare himself for college, but found that he could not do this and earn his full wages at the same time. So as the wages were a first necessity, he gave up his high-school plans and devoted himself to study at nights and odd hours of the day. He discovered a little back room in the real-estate office half filled with old boxes and bags, of which no one else seemed to be aware, and this he fitted up with a bed, a little table and a lamp, and made of it, with a boy's enthusiasm—especially the enthusiasm of a boy who had known Indians—a secret cave in which he lived in a mysterious and exciting way. He slipped out to little restaurants and cheap boarding-places for his meals.
He remembers once standing fascinated before a sign that read: "Table d'hôte, 75 cents"; but after thinking twice of indulging in a single great eating orgy, he decided that no human stomach, much less his own small one, could possibly hold all the food that seventy-five cents would pay for, and that therefore he could not get all of his money's worth. So he went on to some fairer bargain.
There was a bank-vault just across the alley from his secret back room in the real estate office, and many a night did young Herbert lie awake in his cave hearing his imaginary bank-robbers mining their way into the vault and escaping with much rich treasure. But mostly young Herbert studied in that secret cave of his, and that he studied hard and to good purpose is proved by the fact that in little more than two years he felt himself ready to attempt the entrance examinations for college.
CHAPTER III
THE UNIVERSITY
For some time the newspapers had been full of accounts of the founding and approaching opening of Stanford University at Palo Alto, California. Soon after Leland Stanford, Jr., the only child of Senator and Mrs. Leland Stanford, died in Rome in 1884, the Stanfords announced their intention to found and endow with their great wealth a new university in California. The romantic character of the founding and the picturesque setting of the new university in the middle of a great ranch on the shores of lower San Francisco Bay, with the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains rising from its very campus, its generous provision for students unable to meet the expenses of the older institutions of the East, and the radical academic innovations and freedom of selection of studies decided on by the Stanfords and David Starr Jordan, the eminent scientific man selected to be the first president of the new university—all this, together with the evident strong leaning of the institution toward science, as revealed by the character of the president, faculty and curriculum, combined to assure young Hoover that this was the modern scientific university of his dream, just made to order for him. It was exactly the place where he could become a mining engineer like the wonderful man he had always remembered.
So when it was announced in the Portland papers that a professor from Stanford would visit the city in the early summer of 1891, to hold entrance examinations for the university, which was to open in the autumn, Herbert decided to try the examinations. But when he came to compare thoughtfully his store of knowledge with the published requirements he would have to meet, he found that his self-preparation had been rather one-sided. For in this preparation he had followed his inclinations more than the prescribed schedules of college entrance requirements. Why should one waste a lot of time, he had thought, and be bored during the wasting, by studying grammar if one could already talk intelligibly to people? And why should one not revel in complicated problems of figures and geometrical designs that really took some hard thinking to work out, if hard thinking was just what one liked to do?
So, much to his distress he found out, as the examinations went on, that he was decidedly unprepared in some of the required lines such as grammar, rhetoric, etc. And even in mathematics, his favorite study and the one in which he made his best showing, he had not been able to cover, in his limited time for study, the whole ground required for college entrance. He seemed doomed to be refused the coveted certificate of admission.
But the Fates worked for him. In the first place, Professor Swain, the examining professor—now president of Swarthmore College—was the head of Stanford's department of mathematics. In the second place, he was a Quaker, and a man who liked the right sort of boys. And so a candidate who was a little weak in the languages, but was strong in arithmetic and geometry—and was a brave Quaker boy, besides—was not to be too summarily turned down.
This kind and wise examiner has described to me, recently, how he was first attracted to the young Quaker in the group of candidates before him by his evident strength of will. "I observed," said President Swain, "that he put his teeth together with great decision, and his whole face and posture showed his determination to pass the examination at any cost. He was evidently summoning every pound of energy he possessed to answer correctly the questions before him. I was naturally interested in him. On inquiry I learned that he had studied only two books of Plane Geometry, and was trying to solve an original problem based on the fourth book. While he was unable to do this, he did much better; for the intelligence and superior will he revealed in the attempt convinced me that such a boy needed only to be given a chance. So although he could not pass all of the tests, I told him to come to my rooms at the hotel after the examinations, as I would like to talk with him. He came promptly at the appointed hour with a friend of his, the son of a banker in Salem, Oregon. The two boys invited me and Mrs. Swain to stop at Salem to visit them, which we did. I learned there that Herbert Hoover, for that was the boy's name, was an industrious, thoughtful, ambitious boy earning his own living while he studied."
All this was enough for the wise teacher. And an arrangement was mutually agreed on between examiner and examined to the effect that if young Hoover would work diligently for the rest of the summer on