A TRUE STORY ~ Stanford University

Admin Tue 28 Sep 2010, 10:04 am

Judge Not
1 Corinthians 4:5 "Therefore judge nothing before the time....."

".....until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden
things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the
hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God".

Don't be quick to "judge".

A TRUE STORY ----- Stanford University
by Malcolm Forbes
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 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 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, but 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, "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.