Jack London
San Francisco Examiner/November 19, 1902
Before the assembled student body, the faculty, and many visitors, and under a steady downpour of rain, the cornerstone of the Hearst Memorial Mining Building was laid by Mrs. Phoebe A. Hearst yesterday afternoon. The wind and rain alternated in fierce squalls, and it was only by taking advantage of a lull in the storm that the ceremony was accomplished. If there be anything in Mr. John Galen Howard’s idea that the expression of mining in architecture should be essentially elementary and primordial (and there certainly is), then the day, with its mutter of storm and clash of elements, was a most fitting day for the laying of the cornerstone.
The ceremony with its elemental accompaniment, was simple and impressive. Most striking to the eye was the absence of color. There is not much flash and light to blue and gold, and the blue and gold of the platform and the blue of the derrick blended into the dark green background of the trees and but added to the somberness of this setting. The excavation for the foundations of the Mining Building resemble a huge pit wherein giants had labored. The earth, torn up and gouged and plied in great heaps, and the hillside rock naked and raw from the blasting, bore witness to man’s successful contest with nature.
Not Afraid of Rain
By two o’clock the faithful began to arrive. Fear of a wetting did not keep them away. Closed carriages brought the guests from the Berkeley station, but none escaped the deluge when once on the ground. The arrival of Mrs. Hearst was greeted with cheers and college yells. But the arrival of the academic procession, headed by President Wheeler, Regent Charles Wheeler, and W. R. Hearst, seemed the signal for opening the floodgates.
The rain came down in torrents, but above the storm rose the defiant California yell, while through the downpour trooped the visitors, faculty and mining students. The latter were clad in blue overalls and jumpers, and they flanked the platform on either side in dark masses.
Under the canopy Mrs. Hearst, Mr. Hearst, President Wheeler and ex-President Kellogg waited for a lull in the storm. Facing them, the massive cornerstone hung suspended from the derrick, while beyond the foundation of the building was filled by the student body.
Simple and Brief
Ruggedness, simplicity and brevity marked the ceremony. A short invocation by Ex-President Martin Kellogg was followed by the Glee Club, with the choral, “Ein’ Feste Burg ist Unser Gott,” one rugged verse of which runs:
Should hell’s whole legion round us press,
All banded to devour us,
Yet this should work us good success,
Nor fear e’en then o’erpower us;
Though this world’s prince look fierce and bold,
It matters not, his doom is told,
A single word can foil him.
Following upon President Wheeler’s address and the depositing of the metal box containing records, Mrs. Hearst stepped out from under the shelter of the canopy. A storm of handicapping greeted her when she laid the mortar with a silver trowel. In this act she was followed her son, Mr. W. R. Hearst, and also by President Wheeler and Mr. John Galen Howard.
A few words from Mrs. Hearst as the cornerstone descended into place, cheering all around, and the benediction closed the ceremony.
Very simple and very impressive it was, the dedication of this building to the cause of science and humanity, more like the performance of a religious rite than an ordinary work-a-day event. Heads were bare more often than not and everyone seemed to feel the sacredness and solemnity of the occasion. The cornerstone of the Hearst Memorial Mining Building was laid with a spirit very much like that with which the cornerstones of the old cathedrals must have been laid. The spirit of the new University, instinct with life, was in the air.
Greatest of Its Kind
Not only will the Hearst Memorial Mining Building be the finest of its class, but it will be the greatest of its kind. In number of students it has the largest roll, and with the best equipment in the world it is inevitable that it shall take first rank among the colleges of mining. From all the world students of mining will flock to it; and to all the world it will send forth its engineers to the conquest of force and mastery of matter.
And if, structure by structure, as the Greater University grows, each college be reared with a like thoroughness of equipment and completeness of design, there will rise on the western edge of the West the University of the New World. And it shall be a University like unto none in the Old; for it will be adapted to the needs of life as the universities of the Old World are not adapted. It will prepare men, not for the cloistered life, but for their work in the world. It will train men for action, not contemplation. It will respect knowledge, but it will not venerate erudition. It will lesson from the past, but it will give heed to the present. There is work to be done in the world (never so much as now), and it will fit men and women to do that work.
Triumph of Vigorous People
This College of Mines and the Greater University which it heralds is the triumph of a young and vigorous people. It is the advertisement that they are keeping abreast of the times. With the world become a workshop, the Greater University will train men for that workshop. Dead tongues may be well enough to mumble, but they lead to death. The language of life to-day is the language of cogs and wheels and pistons, of steam and electricity, of laboratory research and practical application of scientific discovery. The mining students who watched the laying of the cornerstone yesterday are live men under their overalls and jumpers. They are awake to the Present. The Past has no musty grip upon them. They are engineers of an engineering age, and in their overalls and jumpers they march unrestrained and understanding into the Future.
It is most significant that while England owns the gold fields of South Africa, it is the American mining engineer who has done the work. There is only one reason why the American mining engineer should have done the work, and that reason is that he was the fittest man to do It.
There is a certain appropriateness in that the first building of the new university should be the mining building. Technical efficiency is one of the great factors In American progress, and the splendid technical education of the American universities causes many an old world statesman, such as Lord Rosebery, to lament the backwardness of their own institutions.
Utility and Beauty
But while we prepare ourselves for the work of the world, we are not blind to its beauty, as witness this same Hearst Memorial Mining Building. It is made for work, and it is made for the delight of the eye and the soul. In it utility and beauty meet and become one. As Mr. John Galen Howard, supervising architect of the university, says, “It is the glorification of work.” We are a young people, and we are not afraid of work, nor are we ashamed of work. Therefore we glorify work, and as a nucleus for the Greater University we rear the mining building, a temple of work.
And by the way, Mr. Howard, the supervising architect, is to be congratulated upon the splendid site which the University of California presents for his work. And the University of California is to be congratulated upon its acquisition of Mr. Howard. Where the heart is there the treasure Is, according to Thomas Sandys, and certainly Mr. Howard’s heart is in his work. He has caught the spirt of the Greater University; in fact, seems swept off his feet by it. A half hour’s chat with him, and one cannot escape the contagion of his enthusiasm. “The greatest site in the world for a university,” he says as he exultingly conducts one over the ground, “and the more I see of It the more possibilities appear and the more positive I become that it is so.”
With the laying of the cornerstone of the Hearst Memorial Mining Building the new and greater university has begun. As a stewardess of wealth, this is the contribution of Mrs. Phebe A. Hearst to the State. When the great central avenue, according to the Benard scheme, is flanked on either side by the buildings of the new university, what steward of wealth will step forth and finish what Mrs. Hearst has begun? And by finishing he must crown the university by rearing at the head of the great central avenue an observatory as great as the Lick or Yerkes.
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