A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband,
dressed in homespun threadbare suit, stepped off the train in Bost on.
They 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 and probably didn't
even deserve to be in Cambridge. She frowned."We want 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 they just see you
for a few minutes, they'll leave," she told him.
He sighed in exasperation and
nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn't have the time to
spend with them, but he detested gingham dresses & homespun suits
cluttering up his outer office.
The President, stern-faced
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. And my husband
and I would like to erect 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 & a half million dollars in the physical plant at
Harvard."
For a moment, the lady was
silent. The president was pleased. He could get rid of them now.
And 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.
And Mr. and Mrs. Leland
Stanford walked away,traveling to Palo Alto, California where they
established the university that bears their name, a memorial to a son
that Harvard no longer cared about.
And that was the story about
Stanford University.
