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 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 and 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 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 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 son's name,
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
can do nothing for them or to them.