The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 8, 1896, Page 15

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1896. The most beautiful university site on earth is at Berkeley. The generosity of Phoebe Hearst, and the expectation large things for the benefit of the University of California, as foreshadowed, bave made that institution the center of attention among the educational institu- tions . and educational men the world There, on the grounds now only y improved, but naturally beautiful, s a certainty thata ‘“‘new-born Ox- ford” will in the prophetic words of .Timothy Dwight, written a little over one hundred years ago, ‘‘cheer the 'evening skies.” Crowned with the glories of the best of modern architecture, blossoming into - great flowery acres and stretching away in. undulating masses of greenery from .the foot of the sheltering and lofty range - of hills on the east to their western, . southern and northern boundaries, the slopes within the present inclosed area will be visited in the future by thousands ‘end tens of thousands annually who will .find Berkeley as much of an educational Mecea as Yale or Harvard, as Oxford or Cambridge. The architectural plan, as a whole, has not been formed, nor even conceived. Clusters of educational structures in va- rious centers of learning will be studied and carefully considered, the initial step in that direction having been already taken. These buildings will be admired, but never will receive or deserve the at- ‘tention which instinctively centers on that great area of hundreds of acres which ronts and surrounds the university on very side. Considered purely from the picturesque poi Uhiversity of California are remarkable in every. way, and the purpose of this article isto consider them from that aspect alone. Students in institutions of learning in other parts of the world must tind cause to wonder at details which could belong to no other part of the world, nor to any other university. Roughly estimated, that part of the area which is more or less used, contig- uous to the university buildings or ap- pertaining to the approaches from the | west, south and north, embraces about 250 acres’ of fine fertile land, which almost spontaneous'y becomes a wild flower- garden after the rains, from end to end. W y and with little urging, it gives life and sustenance to plants, ces gathered from all parts west toward the illuminated ccean he sheen of the wonderful bay rancisco. The vegetation of the r spontaneously, good green limb, in sheltered vales among the gently rounded and i i ls. East of the university . buildings the Lills rise grandly, varie- gated by ca There being given the ndscape in California, the e climatic conditions to favor - the growth and full development of vege- icient money to supply skilled * labor and water without limit, the natural ‘lay of the land to render the toil and plans of the landscape gardener most effective, and the desire to make of tbe grounds the most attractive of any ike hil STRAWBER of view, the environments of the | ern windows of the university | university area on earth, and it will be apparent that the possibilities in store can be only imagined. In a word, hereis something now unique in university en- vironment and sure 1o become the wonder and talk of educated tourists within the period of a comparatively few years. At this time the quest which was made for the most picturesque site in all Cali- fornia for the university takes on new interest, for the era of further develop- ment has begun, and to the claims of nature the blandishments of art will be added. John B, Felton, pronouncing’services in memory of Professor Durant in February, 1875, described the discovery of Berkeley as the ideal site for the university, as follows: 2 A few years ago,with many years in Cal- ifornia experience, Mr. Durant set out with some friends to seek a place where learning might finda permanent home on our Pacific shore. He passed in review | many of the most beautiful valleys in our State, so rich in landscapes that de- light the eye and gladden and ennoble the heart. One by one he rejected sites full of beauty, for in | his mind there was an ideal spot where nature would present itself in her loveliest form to the young | student, and lead | him by her display | of outwara beauty to | an appreciation of all | that is good or beau- | tiful in the winter | world of the heart | or mind. | *“One mornmg in spring, when the air, purified by the rains of winter, brought | out in clear relief ihe | lines of ocean, val- | ley, hill and moun- | tain, when the trees were budding and the turf was green, and a vague, dark { spot in the sunlight —the Farallon /Islands — showed itself through the | Golden Gate, he | passed through fields | unbroken by roads, | untrodden by man, | -and came to the pres- ent site of Berkeley. “ ‘Eurekal’ he ex- claimed, ‘I have founa it.’ | “Below him stretched the great bay of | San Francisco, where ships take on their cargo and pass through the narrow straits | to tue broad ocean. Beautiful trees and | tains, hollcwed by the descending winter rains, and seemed like those soft green spots that spring up in the mind in the Rz il = o 902° RY CREEK. - VOIGES OF NATU RE : Whatever the result of the election has been it is evident that November is doing .business on a gold basis. " What floods of it she has been pouring outover hill and valley and bay. Atno other geason, 1t seems to me, 18 there this pure golden quality to the sunlight. The bare brown tifls take on warm tinges from .t. The tender young 'grass just showing its blades reflects it back and streams over the meadows with a vivid glow as of yellowish-green fire. Where less'than a week ago the early’ October -rains washed a sheetof thick mud from the hills above the young grass stands an inch high. 1 four:d a tiny poppy this week rallying to November's gold standard, and the Oregon juncas have been twittering about for iearly a fortnight. They came down fom the north for the campaien, bring- .2 their bright-yellow bilis witn them: ould there were no more dubious cam- PAN:n bills than these! i Up in the woods the golden sunlight has touchea leaves and grasses into ex- quisite autumnal beauty. It is different from the tender, hesitant loveliness of spring, mellow and mature, with a hint air, as though nature were in a retrospec- tive mood. On:can fancy her takitg ac- jcount of the year in these golden days Wwith a certain sense of snug camfort. Mother Nature is such a good house- keeper. Iknow that she bas made ample preparation for the morrow. The little | wake-robins and Solomon’s peals, the parsleys, buttercups and poppies are all snugly tucked to bed until the rinter slumbver time is over, and I am sure she will give encouragement to no more pres cocious poppies who have no call to be sitting up so late. This is the grown-up’s season. The gray - headed dandelions, the silver-crowned grease- wood, the sun-touched foliage and leafless trees and shrubs are having theirsay now. Just here, where some minute spring keeps this clayey bank' wet and glisten- ing, a bee has. alighted upon the wet earth. Bee blossoms ure scarce these days and the bees are forced to fly far afield in ally in our city gardens, but did you ever give a thought to the question of whence they come? Their appearance in the city always secms rather wonderiul to me, for I know -the little creatures must be far not of sadness, but of sober quiet in the L from home and they are so unmistakably channels hollowed by sun-tears after some great and hallowed SOITOwW. *‘And rising calmly from the sunlit bay the soft green slope ascended gently at first and then more abruptly till it be- came a ruffled storm- [WRITTEN IN 1794.] All hail! thou western world, by Heaven designed. The example bright to renovate mankind! Soon shall thy sons across the mainland roam And claim on far Pacific’s shore a home, Their rule, religion, manners, arts convey And spread their freedom to the Asian Sea. PROPHETIG POEM BY TIMOTHY DWIGHT. foliage covered the wrinkles of the moun- | search of sweets. We see them occasion- | worn mountain and then disappeared in the sky. As he gazed upon the glowing landscape he knew that he bad found it When Henry Du- rant gazed in rapture | at the landscape the | old Spanish families | held tracts of lands | which in extent were |equal to a princi- | pality. These tracts | were bounded by a white ribbon of beach on the west and by aspiring hills on the east. Over all the domain grew oak trees, perennially green, with silvery gray trunks, with gnarled, fantastic and wide - reaching limbs, under which sleek cattle sought shelter when the noontide heat was fervid. The swarthy vaquero, silhouetted against the far back- ground of the Golden Gate, galloped across the view like a dream figure. Houses there were none to ob- struct the view on all the immense slope which extended west- ward. The whisper of the madrone, the manzanita and the bay tree answered the shouts of riders and the low- ing and trampling of herds. Con- sidering the romance of early California sionaries with uplifted cross and banners and glistening swords; then the romance of the American conquest and the “gold history, the coming of the Spanish mis- | Towns, cities, fanes, shall raise their towering pride, Proud commerce’s mole the western surges lave The long, white spire be imaged on the wave. Where marshes teemed with death shall meads unfold. Untrodden cliffs resign their stores of gold. ‘Where slept perennial night shall science rise And new-born Oxfords cheer the evening skies. AT BERKELEY, GARDEN. days” being in faney’s view, the desire of Henry Durant to lead students *‘by na- ture’s display of outward beauty 1o an ap- preciation of all that is good or beautiful in the inner world of the heart or mind” seems in consonance with the entire pic- ture, historical and real. There is nothing more romantic in the history of Oxiord or Cambridge or Ameri- can universities, ‘While scomewhai foreign to the pur- pose of this article, but to add a pictur- esque touch of an- other kind, a homely narrative made by Henry Durant, show- ing how the univer- sity which occupies | the most beautiful of university sites had its actual begzinning is given here. The story is taken from ‘William Carey Jones' “Illustrated History of the University of California”: “I be- gan it with three yupils in a building which I hired for $150 a month, to be paid in gold coin monthly, in advance; to be occupied by a man and wife, whose wages were $150 a month, to be paid in the same way. The school increased a little during the first two months and a half, but the inccme was not sufficient to meet expenses, and my housekeepers — Quinn was the man’s name — be and his wife, not having re- ceived the entire pay for that term, began to be alarmed. “He said that what- ever did not succeed in two months and a half in Calfornia never would succeed. He could not trust me any longer. One morning I went up- stairs as usual to my school. Tt got to be time for luncheon and I went downstairs and found nothing pre- pared. Quinn had squatted on the lower floor and put out his shingle Lodgers and boas Drinks for sale at the bar. alien to city life. unless they take a notion to do otherwise, Bees will Iive near us but they can never be domesticated. Tha bee is a creature of the woods, and almost any springtime the nomadic instinct that has lain dormant through countless gene- rutions may awaken in a whole hiveful of the 1nsects and send them swarmine off to the sylyan environment that is theirs by rignt. ‘Whatever brought this bee to the clayey bank his mission is evidently fuifilled. Perhaps he was only drinking. Perhaps the clay afforded some sweet drop for the noney lover. At all events, he is home- ward bound now, for he rises in the air and takes a beeline for—why, bless us, not for the hives in the garden about the ranchhouse a half mile below, but straight into the deeper wood. “Must be a bee tree in the woods,” says my companion, and then we regard each other wistfully, and the same query rises to each pair of lips, **Are you very tired 2"’ ‘Who could feel faticue with a bee tree within a radius of a few miles. At last we were able to decide as to the general direction in which the tree must lie. The question wasto follow up the bee- line until we should come to it, and ina very few minutes after that an unbroken, busy line was established. Our next move was more cautiously made. Field glass in band I followed the line as far as I could across an open glade, I lost them twice, once by stumbling over a fallen log, to the detriment of kneesand elbows. Contact with ~mother earth brought a certain feeling that the wild- goose chase or the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack were plain sailing compared to this crazy flight after a homing bee. But when that bee’s home is a tree, all that I had read or heard about bee trees passed through my mind, firing my imagination and rousing enthu- siasm to white heat. I scrambled up and ‘rushed on as I caught sight of another fleeing insect high above my head. The treetops shut out the sky and Icould see the bees no longer, so I signaled to my fellow-hunter, who presenily came up with the portable bee garden. Our cap- tives being liberated flew straight up above the treetops and disappeared. ** use,” I said, as I watched the sky for their return; ‘“‘we cannot track them above the trees.” She looked at me reproachfully. “'0 coward heart, be still,”” she quoted. “Verily, I came not forth save to find a bee tree, and 1 feel it in my bones that we shall see one this afternoon.” Even as she spoke a bee came back. We could not be very far away from head- quarters. Courage! We may be happy yet! But the search had but just begun. Backward and forward smong the trees; to the right, to the left, but in an ever- narrowing circle, we carried our saucer of sugar, Talk of patience! The way the bees pursued that peripatetic garden of sweets shamed our haste. The afternoon was wearing to a close, and judging from the directions taken by the bees we must have passed that-elusive tree half a dozen times. The bees came and went constantly, and moving the sugar seemed to make very little differ- ence in the numbers that hovered over it. “We shall scarcely get home before dark, now,” my companion said, “and 1 am tired out, now.” This witt a little laugh of apology as she leaned against a tree, The laugh gave way toa look first of surprise then of alarm, and then with a great shoui she grasped my arm, pointing toward the tree beside us. *Here! Here it is!"” ehe cried, excitedly. . ““Where?”. 1 asked, nothing doubting but that she had been stung. *Dllfind some wormwood leaves and bind on it.” “Wormwood what? Are you crazy? Stung? Oh, pshaw. .Can’t you see? This is the tree. The bee tree. It's been here all the time."” ‘MID WOODS OF AUTUMN “Certainly, that tree has been here ever since we have. At least, 'm sure I did not put it there,” I replied. “But, don’t you see, it's the bee tree’’; and as I still stared stupidly at the big trunk before us she suddenly seized me and laid my head close against the bark. “Listen " she cried. A rumbling roar, as of a north wind through the eucaiyptus trees on a dark night, seemed to come directly from the heart of thetree. We had been for fully an hour within a radius of twenty-five feet of this big, bollow tree; but we might have gone home in ignorance of its where- | abouts but for this acaiaent. It all came of our not allowing for the | limitations of a creature in whom instinct is stronger than reason. Each bee, as it sipped its fill, rose above the treetops, circled an instant to get its bearings and then dropped to the tree at the foot of which it had gathered its burden. I can only account for this by supposing that the bees are more familiar with the ap- pearance of their home tree from a bird’s point of view than from the ground. The creature had to rise above it in order to know it. Certainly it would have been far easler to fly ina direct line from the sugar to the storehouse entrange. That is what reason would do. But would reacon ever learn to distinguish one tree in the forest from the appearance of its tip amid a hundred others? We could not even, looking down, as I haveoften doue, from a height, upon a dense growth of timber, satisfy ourselves as to the identity of a single familiar tree. To this day I cannot from the ferry-boat's deck be certain which of the hills ranging before me in the distance fs the particular one familiar to me as my right hand where our bee tree is growing. But the bees evidently found the longest way 'round the shortest way home, and we could distinctly see them pouring in and out of a hole, evidently once a wood- “He got up & barroom with his bottles in it. Isent outto a restaurant and gota luncheon for the boys. Then.I wenttoa lawyer and entered a complaint before a police court extemporized for that occa- sion. Quinn was ordered to appear. He was found guilty of getting up a nuisance ‘and was fined $5 and ordered to desist. Meanwhile I went up to clear out his fixings. “He came up and wanted to know what I was about. I told him what I was going to do. He told me to desist. I, told him that I had made a beginning, and was not going to stop until I had made an end of it. He got into a rage, laid his hands on me with considerable force and was push- ing me away, when suddenly he became as pale as a cloth, lifted his hands over his head and began to pray. “He begged that I would pray that God would have mercy on his soul. His religion came to my relief. He had an impression that he had laid bands ona consecrated person, and thought that he was committing the unpardonable sin. He told me I need not trouble myself to move the things—he would do it.” University sites generally are com- paratively uninter- esting. Yale Uni- versity is in the center of the city of New Haven, and while the grounds and buildings are bounded on one side by the historic New Haven “Green,” or common, fringed with large elms, it has only a view of streets and business blocks. The elms are beautiful, but comparatively few, and the area occupied is small. Harvard University has larger grounds, bnt is equally devoid of landscape. Brown University at Provi- dence, R. L, Wes- leyan and Trinity in Connecticut — these have wider views, the first look- ing out on Narra- gansett Bay, and the other two on the winding Connecticut River. West Point is the best situated of Eastern 1in- stitutions for picturesqueness upon the broad Hudson. Among the State or vrivately conducted universities the University of Wisconsin is considerea to be scenically favored, leading out on two lakes and variegated lands. The fa- mous English universities, Oxford and Cambridge, have very good locations, one being on a low ridge between the rivers Thames and Isis, as it is locally known, and the Cherwell, the other being on the Cam. Compared with the possibilities inherent in the lordly domain of the University of inifornia, these famous old university sites are uninteresting. The towers and _upires of Oxford, numerous and yet varied in character, the quadrangles, old and new, with their profusion o f carved stone- work, historically and architecturally in- teresting, may not hold their superiority above the buildings to rise at Berkeley for many years more, and they cut no figure in this consideration. The accessory charms of groves and avenues of trees, quiet college gardens and well-watered valleys, which please the eye of the Ox- ford student have no better chance to re- tain a claim for suveriority. The accompanying pictures show rather hints of the beauty which it is possible to add to he university grounds at Berkeley than realize in any full degree what can and will be accomptished. The scenes where nature appears to be enthroned, especially in the vicinity of Strawberry Creek and Strawberry Creek Canyon are sufficiently picturesque to draw annualiy a large number of artists to them. It goes with the saying that there is nothing in any other university inclosure which can for a moment compare with these natural pictures. Under the overhanging and overarching trees of native growth, the creek sings and runs along in devious and pleasing ways, with “many a tiny water break above the golden gravel,”” as Tennyson says. The pictures show it in one of its most pleas- ing moods. Under the shade of the clus- ter of great oaks not far from the western boundary of the university is a scene of unsurpassed beauty. Nottheelms of Yale are more picturesque, There are large groves in various parts of the inclosure. Here, seated comforta- bly on benches, spectators gaze enraptured at the wonderful vista of the Pacific and the beautiful mountains and hills on the shores of Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo counties. Or if they wish they can in a moment plunge deeper into tkte woods, hear the wild birds cry and be near the very heart of nature. There are aiready botonical and ex- perimental gardens, an orchard of deciduous fruits to please the eye with their green, and an orchard of olive trees, pranked out in silvery gray foliage. There are huge sentry lines of conifers, which shut out the west wind, and are imposing in their towering height, scenting the air and sighing musically as the breeze blows among them. There are great beds of flowers, exhal- ing perfume and gladdening the vision with the mosi{ briliiant buds, There are some miles of winding roads, which add to the picturesqueness of an area which is slowly, and unknown to most of the peo- ple of this State, destined to be famous not only as a university site, but which is steadily developing into the finest scenic park in California, surpassing Golden Gata Park even in this respect. The whole inclosure will yet “blossom as the rose.” Conditions amply warrant the claim a this time that this is the finest university site on earth. PATH TO STRAWBERRY CANYON. grmvrn‘n'm pecker’s front door, well up in the trunk, where a great branch thrustout. The buz- zing of those about the sugar had misied us as to the source of the sound thatcame from the tree. Honey is not to us moderns what it was to the ancients. We grown ups do not find it, now, what it was toour childish palate, albeit we do not despise 1t when it appears in company with its hereditary compan- ions, griddle-cakes and waflles. But it belongs to the childhood of the world, and we upon whom it has cloyed have only lett to us the subtler joy of findine a bee tree. There are those who, finding it, pillage its sweets for no other reason, that I can determine, than because the honey is there and can be taken. The woods that cover the mountains in South- ern California hide many bee trees and I have known a party of campers to.cut one down that they might taste the sweets that none cared enough for to bring away. It always seems to me that the people who yield to such an impulse as this haye much in common with the man who shot the last great auk. ‘We wandered about the bee- tree, gloat- nmnn'rmxmm IN SONGS OF GOLD 2299299 ing over our discovery, comparing notes as to our sensations at different stages of the chase, and finally traveled down the hill, tired, happy and enriched with the knowledge of a secret shared with the bees; a secret which we resolved never to reveal until the little workers give us permission. But what good is the bee tree doing any one there? I mightanswer thatques- tion with one that seems to me equally relevant. What harm is it doing any one there? Did you ever see a despoiled bee tree, ‘the earth trampled and torn up, other trees broken by careless felling, the ground ana foliage smeared, eyerything sticky, pillaged bees flying hither and thither, buzzing in anger and distress? The mem- ory is rather harrowing. Besides, the best and purest pleasure about a bee tree is in the finding of it. I would not put on my hat for the sake of being taken to one. < No, no, the fastness shall r main in- violate. Certainly a sweeter secret was never intrusted to any one. PENELOPE POWELSON.