Dr. Charles W. Eliot
President of Harvard University
Author's note: For a number of reasons, the following story has been debunked as undisputed urban myth. I accept this as fact—but didn't learn of it before adding much historically accurate data to the original … umm, well … inaccurate … story. It's still a rousing tale with a valid moral, so enjoy it anyway, even though you know it "tain't so."
A woman 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 outer office of the president of Harvard University.
It was 1885; the secretary couldn't believe folks like this actually existed. "We would like to see the president," the man said softly.
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Dr. Charles W. Eliot |
"He'll be busy all day," the secretary snapped with a frown. She'd already determined that such backwoods, country hicks had no business at Harvard.
"We can wait," the woman replied.
For hours, the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away. They didn't. The secretary finally grew frustrated and decided to disturb President Eliot, even though it was a chore she always regretted.
"Maybe if they just see you for a few minutes, they'll leave," she told him.
He sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his stature obviously didn't have the time to spend with them, but he detested gingham dresses and homespun suits cluttering up his outer office. He was, after all, a gifted educator, author of many books, and president of the greatest institution of learning in the country.
The president of Harvard, stern-faced with dignity, strutted toward the couple.
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Amasa Leland Stanford |
The woman told him, "We had a son who attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But less than a year ago, he died, and 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 woman 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 the 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 woman, the mother, was speechless. The president of Harvard silently congratulated himself. He could get rid of them now.
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Jane Lathrop Stanford |
Then the woman turned to her husband and said in a hushed voice, "Is that all it costs to start a university? Why don't we just start our own?"
Her husband nodded. Quietly, Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane Eliza Lathrop Stanford, walked out of President Eliot's plushly-appointed office.
Traveling to Palo Alto, California, where they owned property and raised horses, they established the university that bears their name, a memorial to their only son—Leland Stanford, Jr., University.
Stanford, the crimson and gray.
All because the president of Harvard, Dr. Charles W. Eliot, LL.C, made a mistake and judged them by the traveling clothes they wore from a weary year in Europe; weary because young Leland, age 16, had passed away before their eyes in Italy.
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Leland Stanford, Jr. |
And all the wealth of the Central Pacific Railroad, the great transcontinental dream of Leland Stanford, Sr., was bestowed not upon Harvard, the bastion of the Ivy League, but upon a California upstart with seven teachers and 200 pupils.
Never judge a book by its covers.
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