A lady in a faded grey dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun suit
walked in 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
Harvard.
'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.' Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll
leave,' she said to him.
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, and
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.
Most of the time we judge people by their outer appearance, which can be
misleading, and in this impression only we tend to treat people badly by
thinking they can do nothing for us thus we tend to loose our potential
good friends, employees or customers.
Great people talk about ideas,
Average people talk about things,
Small people talk about others.
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