Stanford University - Founders

This is a true story from Malcolm Forbes
Sent by Narendra Pradhan through Thondup

THE GINGHAM DRESS
A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband,
dressed in a homespun threadbare suit, stepped off
the train in Boston, and walked timidly without
an appointment into the Harvard University President's
outer office.
The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods,
country hicks had no business at Harvard & probably
didn't even deserve to be in Cambridge.
'We'd like to see the president,' the man said softly.
'He'll be busy all day,' the secretary snapped.
'We'll wait,' the lady replied.
For hours the secretary ignored them, hoping that the
couple would finally become discouraged and go away.
They didn't, and the secretary grew frustrated and finally
decided to disturb the president, even though it was
a chore she always regretted. 'Maybe if you see them
for a few minutes, they'll leave,' she said to him !
He sighed in exasperation and nodded.
Someone of his importance obviously didn't have the time
to spend with them, and he detested gingham dresses and
homespun suits cluttering up his outer office.
The president, stern faced and with dignity, strutted
toward the couple. The lady told him,
'We had a son who attended Harvard for one year.
He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago,
he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to
erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus.'
The president wasn't touched.
He was shocked. 'Madam,' he said, gruffly, 'we
can't put up a statue for every person
who attended Harvard and died. If we
did, this place would look like a cemetery.'
'Oh, no,' the lady explained quickly. 'We don't want
to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a
building to Harvard.'
The president rolled his eyes.
He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit,
then exclaimed, 'A building! Do you have any earthly idea
how much a building costs? We have over
seven and a half million dollars in the physical
buildings here at Harvard.'
For a moment the lady was silent.
The president was pleased.
Maybe he could get rid of them now.
The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, 'Is
that all it costs to start a university?
Why don't we just start our own ?'
Her husband nodded. The president's face wilted in confusion and
bewilderment. Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away,
traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established
the university that bears their name, Stanford University,
a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.
You can easily judge the character of others by
how they treat those who they think can do nothing for them.