Rosemead Kiwanis Club

   "Serving the Community Since 1945"

   

   FAX OF

      LIFE

 

 

The Fax of Life

A weekly inspiration, courtesy of the Kiwanis Club of Scott's Valley

(distributed free by the Kiwanis Club of Rosemead, CA - rosemeadkiwanis.org )

October 26, 2008                                                         Volume 14, Number 4

 

The Couple in Modest Clothes

 

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.


‘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, ‘If that's 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.
 

Contributed by Keith Murphy       

          

Editor's note: although a nice homily about the perils of arrogance, the above widely circulated story is not factually true. The Stanford's only son actually died of typhoid fever, not an accident at age, 15; he was still in High School and never had a chance to attend Harvard. Your RKC Reporter editor has Stanford graduate relatives and a passing familiarity with Leland Stanford's history.

 

The tale of the couple being treated ill is false as well. According to the Stanford University website ( www.stanford.edu/about/history ) the Stanfords "did visit Harvard's president but were well-received and given advice on starting a new university in California."

 

The real story of Stanford's founding is tied to a dream Stanford had shortly after his son's death - one that caused the school he founded to stress equal training for women. It also caused Stanford in his later political career to advocate (in vain) the eventual takeover of great industrial enterprises by the firm's workers,  (For confirmation of this see this online essay:  http://dynamics.org/~altenber/PAPERS/BCLSFV/ ) Strange views indeed for a Republican senator and alleged "robber baron."

 

                                                                                             --- Art Landing

 

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