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| Name: |
Hadenuff
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| Subject: |
Nice story
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Date:
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6/6/2007 6:29:20 PM
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This came to me from Head. I hope he does not mind me sharing with you guys.
THANKS HEAD!!!!
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, 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.
You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who
they think can do nothing for them.
A TRUE STORY by Malcolm Forbes
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| Name: |
CindyA
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| Subject: |
Nice story
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Date:
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6/6/2007 7:32:27 PM
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It is a nice story, just not all the way true... I like the true version even better.
The Truth: According to Stanford University, this eRumor is not true. Leland Stanford was once governor of California and in 1876, he bought the first of what would become more than 8,000 acres of land on the San Francisco peninsula. Leland and Jane Stanford had one son, Leland, Jr., but he never attended Harvard. He died at the age of 15 on a family trip to Italy, but from typhoid fever, not from an accident. Within a few hours of his son's death, Stanford said to his wife, "The children of California shall be our children." That was the beginning of Stanford University, according to the official account.
URL: http://www.stanford.edu/home/stanford/history/begin.html
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| Name: |
MythBuster
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| Subject: |
Nice... but not true.
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Date:
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6/6/2007 7:34:02 PM
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"Won't Stanford It
Claim: Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford decided to found their own university after being rebuffed in an attempt to donate a building to Harvard.
Status: False.
Origins: This "Chicken Soup"-like tale warning us against the folly of judging people solely by appearances hit the Internet in mid-1998. As usual, the framework of the tale bears some general resemblance to the truth, but details have been altered that turn it into something quite different from the real story:
*Leland Stanford was a wealthy Sacramento merchant, a railroad magnate who built the Central Pacific Railroad (and drove the gold spike at Promontory Summit, Utah, in 1869), and California's eighth governor (1862-63). He was hardly the type of person to dress in a "homespun threadbare suit," walk "timidly" into someone's office (especially without an appointment), or sit cooling his heels "for hours" until someone deigned to see him.
* The Stanfords' only son died of typhoid fever at age 15, in Florence, Italy. That would have made him a bit young to have attended Harvard, and his death would hardly be described as "accidental."
The closest this story comes to reality is in its acknowledgement that the Stanfords did visit Harvard (among other schools) to gather ideas for creating an educational institution of their own (not to discuss endowing Harvard with some type of facility — the Stanfords had already decided that whatever facility they built would be their own, located in northern California). As Stanford's web site describes the incident:
The Stanfords returned to America in May and, before proceeding to Palo Alto, visited Cornell, Yale, Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They talked with President Eliot of Harvard about three ideas: a university at Palo Alto, a large institution in San Francisco combining a lecture hall and a museum, and a technical school. They asked him which of these seemed most desirable and President Eliot answered, a university. Mrs. Stanford then asked him how much the endowment should be, in addition to land and buildings, and he replied, not less than $5 million. A silence followed and Mrs. Stanford looked grave. Finally, Mr. Stanford said with a smile, "Well, Jane, we could manage that, couldn't we?" and Mrs. Stanford nodded her assent.
The Stanfords did found their university (modeled after Cornell and located on the grounds of their horse-trotting farm) in memory of their son (hence the school's official name of "Leland Stanford Junior University"), but not because they were rudely rebuffed by Harvard's president — because it was what they had intended all along.
A 2001 version of this e-mail falsely attributes the piece to Malcolm Forbes, the founder and publisher of Forbes (a highly respected business magazine).
The "rudely-spurned university endowment" theme of the Stanford story has played out at least once in real life. In July 1998, William Lindsay of Las Vegas contacted an unnamed Scottish institution of higher learning by telephone, saying he was minded to give some money to a university in Scotland. Taking him for a crank, he was rudely dismissed by the person he spoke to. His next call to Glasgow University met with a warmer reception, and in March 2000 that school received a check for £1.2 million, enough to endow a professorship in Lindsay's name.
The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/glurge/stanford.asp"
URL: The real story
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| Name: |
MythBuster
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| Subject: |
Beat me to it!
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Date:
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6/6/2007 7:34:46 PM
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:-)
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| Name: |
Hadenuff
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| Subject: |
Nice... but not true.
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Date:
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6/6/2007 8:42:35 PM
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I did not post this to be the absolute truth, I thought it was a "nice story". I'm glad you had the opportunity to rebuke it , although I'm sorry you missed the point. Maybe you should you read it again, you may learn something. Santa Clause is not true, as well, but I like the story.Hope you don't spoil it for your children for the sake of being "right". Sometimes being "right" isn"t always the best answer.
Anyway, I enjoyed the story and I got the point. Thanks again Head and please continue to send me stories that are important to you, next time I'll enjoy them by myself or share them with people who can see beyond the printed word.
Nice.... and it is true.
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| Name: |
roswellric
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| Subject: |
The bacon
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Date:
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6/6/2007 9:26:29 PM
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is sizzlin......
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| Name: |
MythBuster
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| Subject: |
Oh, I got the point...
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Date:
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6/6/2007 9:51:17 PM
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and there are probably hundreds of examples of factual anecdotes that make the same point. And whenever there are true stories that make a point, I prefer them; after all, if you have to lie to make a point, is it a point worth making?
And, if you want to make claims such as "I didn't post this to be the absolute truth," then don't close your posts with words like "A TRUE STORY by Malcolm Forbes." Doing so, and then claiming otherwise, makes you look like a liar. I'm sure you're not, so why make it look like you are?
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| Name: |
JohnGalt
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| Subject: |
Nice story
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Date:
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6/6/2007 10:32:10 PM
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enjoyed the post. Like most things in life the truth might get a little cloudy but the true meaning is there. Some folks are ready to call foul at every corner. Wonder how smart they would be without the internet.
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| Name: |
Hadenuff
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| Subject: |
Nice story
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Date:
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6/6/2007 10:42:54 PM
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Thanks! I did not mean to pass along false info., just liked the story and thought it made a good point.
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| Name: |
waterbug
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| Subject: |
Nice story
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Date:
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6/6/2007 11:10:06 PM
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It did make a good point. Thanks for sharing.
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| Name: |
Smitty
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| Subject: |
Nice story
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Date:
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6/7/2007 7:22:32 AM
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Enjoyed the story....good post
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| Name: |
head
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| Subject: |
Nice story
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Date:
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6/7/2007 11:38:50 AM
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Sorry for the "Great " lIe that I sent HADENUFF if i had known it to be I would have not sent it. It was sent to me and I passed it along. If I need to pay a fine or serve jail time I guess I will have to. Sorry HADENUFF only the truth(no rumors) is the rule for posting on forum. GET A LIFE!!!!!!!!
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| Name: |
PartTimer
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| Subject: |
Nice... but not true.
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Date:
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6/7/2007 1:15:35 PM
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This is a classic example of postings on the internet. Even when shown to be FALSE they are defended! There are TONS of bogus stuff--mostly "Right Wing" propaganda--that is floating around. No one seems to care to investigate whether it is true or not if it suits their taste.
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| Name: |
MythBuster
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| Subject: |
Nice... but not true.
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Date:
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6/7/2007 2:06:28 PM
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Good to see that somebody else gets it.
A quick read of my original response would show that I agreed with the sentiments; what I disagreed with was treating the story as truth. Everyone sure was quick to jump on me for defending the truth, weren't they?
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| Name: |
Laker
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| Subject: |
Nice story
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Date:
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6/7/2007 2:42:24 PM
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I think there are plenty of true stories out there that serves the same purpose.
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| Name: |
head
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| Subject: |
Nice... but not true.
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Date:
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6/7/2007 3:08:23 PM
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Can we say liberal left wing. It is amasing how someone can tell what side of the fence I am on by what I post.
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| Name: |
Uncle Sam
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| Subject: |
Nice story
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Date:
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6/7/2007 7:56:11 PM
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" I think there are plenty of true stories out there that serves the same purpose."
Or untrue stories that people don't treat as Gospel, but as nice parables instead.
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