nly a year after announcing the Stanford Graduate Fellowships program, a new source of support for graduate students in the sciences and engineering, we are more than halfway toward our goal of creating a $200 million endowment. I am greatly heartened by this resounding endorsement of a vital initiative, and I thank those whose support has brought us to this point.

Since World War II, the federal government has invested in peer-reviewed university research on a fairly large scale. The United States understood that substantial university research provides ground-breaking science; that those scientific insights lead to new applications; and that those applications generate progress for us and for the world. It is no exaggeration to say this process has been an important factor in our nation's world leadership.

It simply is impossible in the contemporary world to do research in the sciences and engineering without the government playing a major role. No other source can replace the annual federal support to Stanford of $387 million (not even counting Stanford Linear Accelerator Center).

However, the contemporary world -- the stresses on the federal budget and the uncertainty that surrounds any interaction with the government -- also demand that we seek as much self-reliance as possible. When asked the most important thing we can do, our school deans unanimously said: "support graduate students." This would assure graduate education to the nation's most talented students, attract even more of the very best of them to Stanford, and employ them in what Herbert Hoover, speaking of universities, called "a system that is peculiarly effective in spotting outstanding intellects and putting them to work in a climate that fosters creative, original thinking." While being awarded an honorary degree at the University of Tübingen in 1954, Hoover went on to say: "From the mutual building by our university faculties and laboratories devoted to abstract science have come most of the discoveries of natural law -- Applied science dries up quickly unless we maintain the sources of discovery in pure science. From these dual activities -- a great stream of blessing in health, comfort, and good living has flowed to all our peoples."

I believe the Stanford Graduate Fellowships program has great potential to ensure that this stream continues to flow. It is crucial to the nation -- and to those who benefit most directly from our students and faculty -- that we fulfill that potential. In its recent Survey of Silicon Valley, The Economist said: "Silicon Valley outsources the provision of its most important resource -- clever people -- from the local community." The Economist cited Stanford as a top-end source.

We are halfway toward our goal of ensuring that source. But, as Silicon Valley entrepreneurs know, the second $100 million is the hardest. The time has come for others to join our founding donors in this important initiative.