How Stanford Came to Be

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 president's outer office. The secretary could tell in a moment that such back-woods, 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 to do.

"Maybe if they just see you for a few minutes, they'll leave," she told him. And he sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn't have the time to spend with them, but he detested these country folk looking people cluttering up his outer office.

The president, stern-faced with dignity, strode toward the couple.

The lady told him, "We had a son that attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he passed away. 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 gruffy, "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 name, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.

Interesting ????

Cool, is that true?

Yeah, is that really true?

:rolleyes:

http://www.stanford.edu/home/stanford/history/begin.html

Read the bottom

Interesting link :thumbsup:

Josh, could you shrink your sig down a bit bro?

Urban myth, mostly for entertainment purposes, but factual in that the Stanford's did visit Harvard for thoughts for Stanford University.

Naw, it's not. But I love to tell that one, cuz the general public doesn't know their ass from last Tuesday. It wouldn't stretch beyond the realm of possible truth if some of the facts in the story didn't add up.

The Urban Myth will be in the history books in 150 years.

150 years from now the myth will be more entertaining then the facts.. so they will just make it into a movie then... I better get some kind of copywrite on this story so my grandkids can cash in :)

Jonathan

st00f the grandkids, i'ma gunna cash in!